


be our guest

by jemmasimmmons



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Slow Burn, Unresolved Sexual Tension, chef/food critic au, everyone sees it but them
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:53:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: "People are laughing, sharing forkfuls of their food and holding their glasses out for a refill of wine, and smiling at one another. On any other night, Jemma might stop and ask them how they are enjoying their food, basking in the sure praise and assurance they would offer her. Tonight, however, she only has eyes for the man sitting at the table in the middle of the room.”Jemma Simmons likes nothing more than positive reviews of her food. Leopold Fitz appears to like nothing more than not giving them to her. A chef/food critic AU.





	1. pumpkin and garlic risotto

**Author's Note:**

> this au spiralled from a prompt on tumblr that i saw last summer and i planned it all out but never wrote it. i picked it up again once s4 started and here we are! it's full of predictable cliches, but you all knew it would be. hopefully i'll be updating every other day, depending on how much uni work i have.
> 
> the title comes from the beauty and the beast song but that's as far as the similarities go. i hope you enjoy this!

 

 

The morning that Melinda May announces to her staff that they are going to get reviewed by a critic from SHIELD magazine it is a crisp and golden autumn morning, the kind that has Jemma dreaming of the kind of autumnal dishes she could put on the specials menu for the week.

‘Which critic?’ Bobbi asks, from her perch on May’s filing cabinet. She swings her long legs sending dead, wet leaves drifting down from the soles of her boots onto the carpet.

‘Not sure. Phil Coulson didn’t send me a name.’

‘Hold on, hold on!’ Daisy dumps her bag on May’s desk and begins rifling through it. ‘I think I have a copy of their latest issue here…’

_Pumpkin and garlic risotto_ , Jemma thinks to herself, leaning against the door. _But with rosemary or coriander?_

‘When are they coming?’ Elena asks, peering over Daisy’s shoulder as she flicks through the magazine furiously.

‘Tonight.’ The skin around May’s mouth pulls taunt as she says it, but other than that she betrays no other outward sign of nerves.

_Rosemary, definitely_.

‘Tonight?’ Bobbi sounds horrified as she hops off the cabinet to join the others at the desk. ‘What, and we only get ten hours’ notice?’

‘Another restaurant they were reviewing backed out last minute,’ May says. ‘They still needed to fill their feature, and we could always do with the publicity. Profits have been down this month, not by a lot, but enough.’

Elena mutters something under her breath in Spanish that none of them want to translate, and then she jabs at the magazine page in Daisy’s hands. ‘There! That’s him.’

‘ _Leopold Fitz_ ,’ Daisy reads. ‘ _Food columnist_.’

If she has the time today, Jemma thinks, she will nip out to the food market, see if she can pick up a pumpkin or two for a good price. It would be a fantastically seasonal special for the evening.

‘Is there a picture?’

‘Nope. Not even a twitter handle.’

‘Seriously? What modern journalist isn’t on twitter?’

‘I don’t know, one who’s, like, _ninety,_ maybe?’

Maybe she could pick up some fresh garlic at the market too. Perhaps even some spring onions…

‘I realise that its short notice,’ May says, ‘but providing service to customers is your jobs. This is just another day at work. Leopold Fitz is just another customer. You can handle this. Simmons?’

Jemma blinks, the sound of her name drawing her back into the room at last. Her brain speeds up, finally processing everything that has just been said. She swallows, tucking her thumbs into her palms nervously.

‘Yes, May?’

‘You can handle this. Right?’

And then suddenly they are all looking to her: May, Daisy, Bobbi and Elena. As the head chef in charge of the kitchen, most of the responsibility for tonight is about to fall squarely on her shoulders. But, then again, on what night did it not?

Taking a deep breath, Jemma forces her head upwards and gives her team an easy smile.

‘Of course I can. After all, what could go wrong?’

 

* * *

 

 

Two and a half hours into the evening rush, Jemma is beginning to wish that time travel existed, so that she could go back in time to that morning and clamp her hand over her own mouth in order to stop her uttering the words that had seemingly jinxed her for the whole day.

Apparently when cooking a risotto for a magazine’s food critic there were _a lot_ of things that could go wrong.

To start with, the pumpkins she had bought at the food market were bland, watery, and a little bit bruised on the inside. There had been no time to head back and get any more, so she had just had to dice them even smaller than she normally would and throw them into the sizzling roasting tray to hope for the best.

After that, the bottle of olive oil had slipped through her fingers and smashed on the floor, covering the linoleum with a thick layer of oil. Even now, an hour later, Jemma was still finding herself slipping on her feet as she spun from the fridge to the hob.

Then, disasters had come in alarmingly fast succession – her rice had stuck to the bottom of the pan, the spring onions had gone brown too quickly and when she goes to melt the butter in a fresh frying pan, the butter spits, jumping out of the pan and scalding the back of her hand.

Jemma winces, trying to ignore the pain as she takes a small spoonful of the risotto up to her lips and tastes. She sighs, tossing the spoon back down onto the surface in frustration.

She should have used the coriander instead.

Across the kitchen, Daisy stands by the door, anxiously biting her nails. Since the critic is coming tonight, May has decided to take over her usual job as front of house, leaving Daisy to drift about the kitchen as sous-chef to a head chef desperate to be left alone. Her friend is bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and the movement at the corner of Jemma’s eye is horribly distracting.

‘Daisy, darling,’ she says with a forced lightness, ‘I could do with that pan being washed, would you mind…?’

Daisy, visibly perking up at the idea of having something to do, takes the pan from her and carries it to the sink.

‘Everything is going to be fine, Jemma,’ she says, scrubbing at the pan with fresh vigour. ‘Trust me, you’ve got this.’

Jemma has to bite her lip to stop herself from wailing that she doesn’t have this, not at all, and that she is quite ready for somebody else to step in and handle it from here on out, thank you very much. But she knows that Daisy is only trying to reassure her, so she manages a smile in response.

Suddenly, the kitchen door bangs and Elena all but falls inside carrying a tray of empty plates. Inwardly, Jemma groans; usually she is delighted by how fast the head waitress could move about the restaurant because it means that her food has less time to go cold before it reaches the customers. Today though, Elena’s speed only means that she is running out of time.

‘He’s here.’

Jemma feels her heart sink as Daisy’s jaw drops beside her.

‘Is he? _Already_?’

Elena nods, and there is a gleam in her eyes that Jemma really doesn’t like.

‘Bobbi is getting him some wine, and I have his order…’

‘Is he actually ninety?’ Daisy demands, dropping the frying pan back into the soapy water and hurrying across to peer through the small circular window in the kitchen door.

‘Oh, no.’ Elena is grinning, and she can’t quite seem to stand still. ‘He is most definitely not ninety.’

Daisy is on her tip toes peeking through the window and she gestures behind her. ‘ _Jemma_. You have got to come and look at this Fitz guy.’

Exhaling deeply, Jemma shakes her head, counting to five to steady herself before she speaks. ‘I can’t, Daisy, I need to work. Can you bring me the bowl I had warming?’

Grabbing the oven gloves, Daisy darts across to the grill and removes the bowl, bringing it over to the counter. Taking a brief moment to push back her tears, Jemma spoons a portion of the risotto into the bowl, finishing it off with a swirl of cream and a fine grating of parmesan.

She takes a step back and examines the end result with Daisy and Elena.

‘ _Dios mío_ ,’ Elena mutters in dismay, and Jemma is rather inclined to agree with the sentiment.

Of all the dishes she has produced during her many years inside the kitchen, few have looked quite so unappealing.

‘What,’ she asks hopefully, ‘did Mr Fitz order?’

_Please not the risotto_.

Elena is still staring down at the bowl in front of her mournfully, as if she is already planning the displays of flowers for Jemma’s funeral.

‘The risotto.’         

Behind her, she hears Daisy clap her hand over her mouth and Jemma is just about ready to scream herself. But she is the head of this kitchen, responsible for the dinners of dozens more diners still tonight. And so she can’t.

‘Well then,’ she says with as much brightness as she can muster as she gestures to the bowl. ‘There it is!’

Elena throws her a look, one that makes Jemma feel like she has moved on from flower arrangements and is now trying to decide what to say in her eulogy, before picking up the plate and leaving the kitchen as quickly as she had arrived.

Making her way back to the counter, Jemma sinks down heavily onto her stool to keep herself from falling over on her wobbly legs.

‘You never know,’ Daisy says helpfully. ‘Maybe he _likes_ his rice overdone!’

With a groan, Jemma drops her head down onto the counter, landing her forehead slap bang in a pile of pumpkin seeds.

 

* * *

 

 

_An Evening At Melinda’s (Just Don’t Call Her That)_

_When I was told that the restaurant I was reviewing this week was the little known establishment known as Melinda’s on Cavalry Street, I had high hopes. The place is quietly known for its laid back atmosphere and high quality cuisine, and I was looking forward to a night experiencing this first hand._

_Sorry to say, I didn’t._

_The evening started off well. I was greeted at the door by the owner (note: she did not seem to appreciate my considering us on a first name basis so soon into our acquaintance. I quickly reverted to the more acceptable ma’am instead) and was shown to my table, before being served a glass of Merlot and offered the menu. Things went rapidly downhill after making my choice._

_I had the seasonal special: pumpkin, garlic and rosemary risotto. A culinary concept that had potential to be an exquisite dish but, like most of the evening, fell so far short it was hardly worth trying at all. The pumpkin was tasteless, the rice overdone and coriander would have been a much better complimentary herb._

_What made the night even worse was that the staff seemed to know exactly how badly things were going, and made no visible attempt to hide it. The waitress’ hands shook as she served me and I could see the front of house slamming her head repeatedly into the kitchen door from where I sat. Also, I’m fairly sure the wine server was trying to get me so drunk I wouldn’t remember what I had eaten._

_Looking back on that risotto, I can only wish that she had succeeded._

* * *

 

 

‘Invite them again,’ Jemma pleads.

May looks up at her from the desk; a copy of the newest issue of SHIELD laid out flat in front of her. Even the sight of it makes Jemma want to wince.

When it had first come out she had accompanied Daisy, Bobbi and Elena to a ceremonial burning of the issue in the kitchen, Daisy and Elena glaring at the smouldering shards of paper as Bobbi stood on a chair wafting the smoke away from the smoke detectors. But not even that had managed to take the sting out of the words and the humiliation is still making Jemma’s heart quicken a week after the event.

Not since her very early days of culinary school had she received an assessment quite so scathing.

Giving her a look somewhere between exasperation and compassion, May shakes her head. ‘Simmons…’

‘Please, May.’ Jemma takes a step forward, widening her eyes at her. ‘I’m better than that, you _know_ that I am.’

‘I do know that,’ May agrees. ‘And so does everyone else working here, and, most importantly, so do you. You don’t need some random journalist from SHIELD to tell you that for you to know that it’s true.’

Jemma bites her lip at the reminder of the old lesson, the one May has been trying to teach her since the moment they met. She couldn’t cook to please everyone, she knew that now. But she still can’t shake off the hot flush of embarrassment over the review, and she knows that there is only one way she will ever be able to.

‘Jemma,’ May says, a little softer than before as she takes in the look on her face. ‘It’s alright. They’re just a small, backstreet magazine, and we’re just a small, backstreet restaurant. The review isn’t going to hurt us. If anything, it’s already done us good, getting our name out there. Profits are up 0.8% this week so far.’

Taking a deep breath, Jemma raises her eyes to meet her employer, one of her oldest and most trusted friends. ‘In that case,’ she says, as evenly as she can. ‘You’ve got nothing to lose by inviting them again, have you?’

May’s eyebrows narrow, and Jemma almost loses her nerve at the look on her face, but she stands her ground even so, holding her breath. After a few seconds, May gives a sigh and, without breaking eye contact, reaches across her desk for her phone and dials a number.

‘Hello? SHIELD magazine? This is Melinda May, calling from Melinda’s Restaurant. Put me through to Phil Coulson. I have a proposition for him.’

The speaker on the other end of the line says something, and May rolls her eyes.

‘No, not _that_ kind of proposition.’

 

 


	2. chicken with garlic and lemon jus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jemma raises one shoulder in an ambivalent shrug, suddenly acutely aware that the whole room has stopped to watch them, every diner holding their breath and their forks in mid-air. This is her performance, and she is determined to have the parting shot."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all of the recipes mentioned in this fic can be found on the bbc food website, in case you ever feel like making them yourself! there are a couple of exceptions and one of these is the chicken dish in this chapter, which is a favourite meal in my family :)
> 
> thank you to juliana for the correction of the spanish!

 

 

This time around, Jemma leaves nothing to chance.

She starts planning her menu the moment May tells her Leopold Fitz is coming to review them again, and spends the next week fervently practicing her chosen dishes, late into the night when the restaurant is closed. She pours over his previous columns, searching for any clues as to what his preferences are, and insists that the others try each slight adjustment of her recipes, just in case that extra clove of garlic had tipped the dish from delightful to detestable.

‘This is an awful lot of effort,’ Daisy had observed with her mouth full, ‘for a guy that you don’t even know what he looks like.’

‘Yes, well, I could hardly sneak a peek at him after serving him that awful risotto, could I?’

‘I don’t know. Seeing your beautiful face might have helped soften the blow…’

Jemma had flicked her spoon filled with butternut squash at her. ‘Shut up and tell me how good that tastes.’

When the night comes, she feels in control, in a way that she hadn’t the first time around. All her ingredients are of the best quality, organised around her in order of preparation, and she has spare pots and pans waiting in the cupboards, to save her the trouble of having to wash up half way through.

She is able to make a start on other dishes as she waits for Elena to whirl in and tell her Fitz has arrived and, as she carries out the clockwork movements with the confidence of someone who had done them a million times before, Jemma finds that her shoulders are starting to relax and she is almost able to completely lose herself in the familiar motions.

Almost.

When the kitchen door bangs, she jumps, looking up in surprise as Bobbi hurries in, her blonde hair already escaping from its tight bun.

‘Is he…’

Bobbi nods. ‘He’s here. Daisy’s showing him to his table. Elena was going to come in and tell you, but there was a water spillage on table twelve, so she is otherwise engaged.’

Jemma nods, taking a deep breath to steady herself. ‘Does he know that all his dishes are picked out for him already?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Bobbi’s eyes are twinkling as she grins, leaning both her elbows on the kitchen counter. ‘Daisy told him. I don’t think he was too happy about it.’

‘Well, good.’ Jemma slams her pan down on the hob and throws her friend a sweet smile. ‘ _I_ wasn’t too happy about his review, so I suppose that makes us even.’

Bobbi’s grin widens at that, and she rubs her hands together. ‘So, anything I can do to help?’

‘Um…’ Jemma scans her work surface, searching for anything that could be done in advance. ‘Ah! Could you possibly peel those shallots for me? And then quarter them.’

Taking up the knife, Bobbi steps into line beside her, peeling away the skins of the onions and tossing them into the compost caddy.

‘Don’t cut off the ends until you’ve done them all,’ Jemma murmurs to her, breaking her ginger sticks into two inch long pieces. ‘That way you won’t start crying so early.’

‘Got it.’

As she starts to gently brown her chicken thighs in a pan of olive oil, Jemma watches Bobbi quarter the onions, the comfortable silence between them punctuated occasionally by a sniff as she wipes away a stray tear. She can’t help but feel a pang of affection for her, for all her friends really, for being so supportive of her this week.

‘Bobbi…’ She looks up at her, raising an eyebrow questioningly, and Jemma cocks her head. ‘Did you really try and get a man drunk for me?’

She hears her friend snort, before giving her an almost unnoticeable shake of her head and turning back to her onions.

‘Honey,’ Bobbi says, ‘I would get a _dozen_ men drunk for you.’

Half an hour later, Jemma is plating up her dishes, adding the final touches and seasoning. She has told Elena that she would rather serve Mr Fitz herself tonight, allowing him to put a name to the face and allowing her to introduce herself and her food.

‘What are you hoping will happen?’ Elena had teased her, as she lined up plates on her arms to take them out. ‘Hearing your beautiful face speak about the food will daze him so much he’ll have to give us a good review?’

‘The food will speak for itself, thank you very much,’ Jemma had retorted. ‘But a beautiful face alongside it could never hurt…’

She loads the dishes up onto a trolley, making sure to keep the main on a hot plate to keep it warm while the starter was eaten. Brushing her fingers back through her hair and patting her apron down, Jemma takes a deep breath before pushing the kitchen doors open and stepping out into the main body of the restaurant.

There is a quiet, comfortable atmosphere among the diners that, on a normal occasion, she would love. People are laughing, sharing forkfuls of their food and holding their glasses out for a refill of wine, and smiling at one another. On any other night, Jemma might stop and ask them how they are enjoying their food, basking in the sure praise and assurance they would offer her. Tonight, however, she only has eyes for the man sitting at the table in the middle of the room.

He is certainly not the ninety-year-old Daisy had predicted; in fact, he appears to be about her own age, a little bit taller, and with dusty brown hair and a slight stubble down the side of his face. He is wearing a grey jacket with a light blue shirt underneath which she can see is already crumpled, due to how he is slumped in his chair, twisting at the stem of his wine glass with a bored expression on his face.

Clenching her jaw tightly, Jemma presses a smile to her lips as she approaches the table.

‘Mr Fitz, I presume?’

He looks up at her, a little startled, and she sees that his eyes widen before he clears his throat and nods.

‘Just Fitz is fine. And you must be Miss Simmons. Or, should I say, Chef Simmons?’

Jemma tries not to allow her surprise at hearing his accent show on her face as she comes to a stop beside him. All of things, she had been expecting a pleasant Scottish lilt the least.

‘Either will do nicely, thank you,’ she replies primly, folding her hands in front of her. ‘I hope you are enjoying your evening at Melinda’s tonight.’

‘So far, at least.’ Fitz leans back even further in his seat, the hint of a sneer on his face. ‘I haven’t had anything to eat yet.’

It takes everything in Jemma’s power to keep her features schooled into a pleasant expression as she steps to one side of her trolley.

‘Oh, I can assure you, Mr Fitz,’ she says, allowing her voice to drip with sweetness. ‘You have absolutely nothing to worry about there.’

He raises one eyebrow at that and leans forward so that his elbows are leaning on either side of his place setting, Jemma struggling not to wince at his poor table manners. Now that he has brought his face into the light, she can see that his eyes are blue, and shockingly so.

‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,’ he says. ‘I can’t say I’m expecting much. Especially after last time…I’ll never be able to look a pumpkin in the face ever again.’

There is no humour in how he say it, no friendliness and no silent reassurance that he is only joking. Jemma feels her cheeks grow hot as her face falls, and she scowls at him.

‘Well, if you’re so certain we’re going to disappoint you, what are you even doing here?’

Fitz shrugs, having the decency to look a little sheepish. ‘Coulson told me I had to. Apparently your Ms May made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.’

At the mention of May, Jemma feels herself straighten up, pride spreading through her chest as she remembers her mentor’s faith in her, her belief that allowed her this precious second chance. A second chance that she refuses to let slip away from her because of one arrogant, rude and utterly miserable food critic.

Unclenching her fists, she smiles again.

‘In which case, I suppose we had better get on with it then, shouldn’t we?’

Fitz grimaces in response, which makes Jemma want to dump his glass of water over his head (he had opted for the non-alcoholic option this evening, she has noticed), and he gestures towards her trolley.

‘What delights have you prepared for me tonight?’

Feeling the control of the situation seep back into her body, Jemma removes her dishes with a flourish, setting them down in front of him.

‘For starters,’ she announces, ‘roasted butternut squash stuffed with caramelised onions and ginger, followed by chicken with a lemon jus and fresh garlic.’

She watches, as Fitz’s eyes scan over the plates, and feels a smug pang of satisfaction when she sees him purse his lip, wondering if she might even have impressed him.

‘No dessert?’ is all he says, looking up at her and crossing his arms.

Jemma smirks back, tilting her chin up. ‘But of course. There’s hazelnut ice cream waiting for you in the kitchen, with salted caramel sauce.’

‘Homemade?’

‘Whatever else?’

Fitz’s lip curls grudgingly and he picks up his fork before meeting her eyes. ‘Do I have your permission to begin?’

Jemma raises one shoulder in an ambivalent shrug, suddenly acutely aware that the whole room has stopped to watch them, every diner holding their breath and their forks in mid-air. This is her performance, and she is determined to have the parting shot.

Smiling so sweetly she almost sickens herself, she takes a hold of the trolley handle and starts to push it back towards the kitchen.

‘But of course, Mr Fitz,’ she calls back over her shoulder. ‘Be my guest.’

 

* * *

 

 

_Another Evening At Melinda’s (Hold The Risotto)_

_As many of you will know, last week I had the dubious pleasure of dining at Melinda’s Restaurant, much to the disgust of my taste buds. This week I was astonished, and not exactly thrilled, to be invited back for another night of dining, presumably in the hope that I would be more inclined to give them a more favourable review the second time around. Read on, and make up your own mind._

_Needless to say, when you have reviewed a restaurant once you’re unlikely to receive the same treatment as you did the first time around. Of course, when you give a bad review, the difference is all the more noticeable._

_Last time, I was greeted by the owner herself – this time, Ms May didn’t even appear throughout the evening. Instead, I was greeted by a front of house who looked me up and down like I was a mannequin and wrinkled her nose up as she took my jacket.  When I told the wine server I would prefer only to drink water throughout the evening, she gave me a look so dirty you’d have thought I’d murdered her mother._

_But, what you all want to know is: was the food any better? Well, the restaurant’s chef, a Miss Jemma Simmons, who saw fit to grace me with her presence this time, would like for me to tell you that. So, can I?_

_My first dish of the night was stuffed butternut squash (apparently Miss Simmons has a reluctance to let go of her root vegetables during the winter months), followed by chicken in lemon juice. Both of these, much to my surprise, were at least edible…if not at all enjoyable._

_Don’t get me wrong. The chicken was golden and the skin was crispy, the juice had zest and the squash was suitable stuffed. Everything was cooked exactly as it ought to be. Which was my biggest problem with it._

_Jemma Simmons can apparently cook food well. She can follow a recipe, and produce an acceptable meal with all the flavours where they are supposed to be and all the techniques are perfectly executed. But there is no imagination to it, no passion. And that is the root of the problem: there is no heart to Miss Simmons’ cooking, and I doubt that there ever will be._

* * *

 

 

‘But what does it _mean_?’ Jemma wails.

She is sitting at the bar in the restaurant after closing, a copy of SHIELD open in front of her on Fitz’s column. Bobbi, Elena and Daisy are with her, wine glasses strewn on the top of the bar, and Bobbi is just reaching into the fridge for their third bottle of wine.

‘It means,’ Daisy says, holding out her glass, ‘that he’s a pretentious fucking dick. A pretentious fucking dick who can’t write for shit, apparently.’

Elena snorts, grabbing the magazine and tugging it over to her side of the bar.

‘ _Es un imbécil_!’ she declares, waving her glass about so furiously that half of her wine sloshes out onto the pages. She then lapses into a heated wave of Spanish insults, occasionally jabbing her finger at the column to illustrate her point.

Bobbi nods along with her agreeably as she refills their glasses.

‘Don’t even think about it anymore,’ she orders. ‘It’s not worth it, Jemma, seriously. Here, let’s just put it in the trash where it belongs.’

She makes to prise her fingers off the pages, but Jemma stubbornly clings on, unwilling to let go.

‘Not yet,’ she says, brushing Bobbi away and snatching the magazine closer to her again. ‘I just want to read it one more time…’

She doesn’t miss the looks that her friends exchange when they think she can’t see, looks of equal parts exasperation and concern. She knows that she is being slightly obsessive over this, but there is something about this Leopold Fitz, something in his words and in his manner, that is making her show her competitive side. Somehow, he is simultaneously bringing out the best and the worst in her and Jemma isn’t sure whether she should love or hate him for it.

Bobbi shakes her head, but lets it go anyway. ‘I don’t know what you’re hoping to get out of it,’ she mutters, filling up Jemma’s glass with wine. ‘It’s just a load of crap written by some guy who likes to think he knows more than the rest of us. I mean, did you see the way he put his hand over his glass when I tried to pour for him? It was like he thought I was planning on getting him drunk again…’

‘ _Were_ you planning on getting him drunk again?’ Elena asks.

Bobbi shrugs. ‘I was prepared to do whatever was required of me,’ she says darkly into her glass.

‘But what does he _mean_?’ Jemma repeats, her eyes still reading and rereading the article in front of her. Just like in his first review, Fitz’s words feel like they are sticking to her, repeating over and over again in her mind, and now that she can imagine them being spoken in his own voice it makes her feel even worse. ‘No heart? How does my cooking not have any _heart_?’

Beside her, Daisy puts down her glass and shifts her stool closer so that she can place one hand comfortingly on her back.

‘He doesn’t mean _anything_ ,’ she says, leaning in to rest her head on Jemma’s shoulder. ‘Like Bobbi says, it’s just a load of crap that he wrote to meet a deadline. Hell, we’ve all done it, like at school when you got to class and remembered there was homework.’

Jemma sniffs, wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jumper. ‘I always remembered my homework.’

Daisy chooses to ignore this, pressing on instead.

‘He probably never even gave a second thought to what he was saying, and what you would think about it, Jemma, so neither should you. You’re better than this,’ here, she waves dismissively to the magazine, ‘you know you are. And we all know it too.’

‘Here, here!’ Bobbi cheers, as Elena raises her glass to Daisy’s words.

Jemma manages a small smile as Daisy squeezes her shoulders, pressing her glass back into her hand. She takes a drink, feeling her spirits lift ever so slightly at her friends’ encouragements and the alcohol now flooding her system.

‘So,’ Bobbi says, sweeping the copy of SHIELD off the bar and dangling it in mid-air, ‘I do believe the time has finally come to say goodbye to Mr Fitz. And I think I speak for all of us when I say that it couldn’t have come soon enough!’

She dumps the magazine unceremoniously in the waste paper basket, to more cheers from Daisy and Elena, who immediately raise their glasses together.

‘A toast!’ Daisy declares. ‘To never having to see his smug face in our restaurant ever again!’

Jemma joins in, lifting her glass to clink against the others as they laugh, but there is an unease creeping into her stomach even as she does so.

‘Well, actually…now that you mention it…’

The words have hardly left her lips before three heads have snapped around to face her.

‘Jemma,’ Bobbi says, in a quietly horrified voice. ‘Please don’t tell me that you’re going to ask him here again.’

Jemma hides her face in her glass, taking another swig of wine as she feels her face grow hotter and hotter.

‘ _Jemma_ …’

‘May rang SHIELD again this afternoon,’ she says, shaking her hair back over her shoulders. ‘She spoke to Phil Coulson and Fitz is coming back a week on Friday.’

She crosses her legs and looks up, daring any of them to tell her that this is a bad plan, a very bad plan, the _worst_ plan she has _ever_ had. Bobbi’s face is tilted up to the heavens, and Elena is already reaching for the wine again, but Daisy heaves a heavy sigh and reaches forward to pat her hand.

‘You’re an absolute lunatic, Jemma Simmons,’ she says earnestly. ‘But we love you for it. And you can count us all in, whatever the hell it takes.’

Jemma feels a warm sensation spread through her, and she can’t tell if it’s because of the wine or her friend’s words, or maybe just a little bit of both.

‘Thank you, Daisy,’ she says, squeezing her hand back with a smile. ‘Ready to get started?’

She watches as her face falls, the previously encouraging grin giving way to complete bafflement.

‘Sorry, get started on _what_?’

Jemma beams as she drains the last of her wine and reaches down to her bag, pulling out the box file of recipes she had spent the afternoon compiling. She drops it on top of the bar, with a satisfying thump.

‘Picking out recipes, of course! Now, take a look at some of these and tell me whether you think any of them will have enough bloody _heart_ …’

 

 


	3. haggis and clapshot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Fitz’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks from her, to the plate, and then back again. ‘Seriously?’  
> ‘You were the one who said I needed a bit of heart to my cooking,’ Jemma says airily, trying to hide the smirk creeping onto her lips.  
> She notices that he has paled a little, prodding at the pile of haggis with his fork. ‘I very much hope, Simmons,’ he says, ‘that you know haggis is supposed to be made mostly with the sheep’s stomach, and not it’s heart.’"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for not getting a chapter up last night! to make up for it, i'm posting a chapter tomorrow as well :) i hope this was worth the wait!

 

 

‘Fitz.’

‘Simmons.’

‘It’s good to see you back again.’

‘Oh, really?’ Fitz looks up at her with one eyebrow raised. Standing above him with her trolley beside her, Jemma has the most peculiar sense of déjà vu. ‘Because I don’t think any of your colleagues agree with you on that one.’

She has to grimace at that, having watched Daisy refuse to take his jacket when he’d come in (‘you should know where the damn coat rack is by now, _Leopold_ ’) and knowing that Bobbi and Elena are both standing by the bar, their arms crossed over their chests, prepared to leap in to her defence should she need it.

But Jemma is determined that, tonight, she won’t.

‘They don’t like you very much,’ she admits.

Fitz snorts. ‘Yeah, that was obvious,’ he says, and Jemma is surprised to hear what sounds a little like regret in his voice. ‘I guess I’m just a little bit new at this. I don’t normally get invited back to the places I gave bad reviews to.’

‘Yes, well…’ She gives a slight shrug and holds out her hands at her sides. ‘I’m not normal.’

For a moment, Fitz observes her carefully.

‘No,’ he agrees. ‘You’re definitely not.’

The words, combined with the unexpected softness he is looking at her with, are enough to throw Jemma off balance, and she has to blink, reminding herself where she is. It appears that Fitz has to do the same, because he sucks in a breath, pulling his eyes away from her and directing them to the trolley of food instead.

‘So,’ he says, rubbing his hands together. ‘What am I eating tonight, Simmons?’

Jemma turns back to the trolley, feeling her heart hammer inside her chest. _Calm down_ , she tells herself firmly. _You can do this_.

Beyond their table, she can see the other diners eating, chattering quietly amongst themselves. Most of them are preoccupied with their own meals but one or two, she notices, have half an eye on her and Fitz as they sip at their wine, clearly enjoying the unexpected bout of entertainment in their evening. The reminder that they are both still in public, being watched by so many people, is enough to jolt Jemma out of her reverie.

She takes a deep breath before placing the dish down in front of him and removing the lid, so that he can look down at his dinner.

‘Tonight, Fitz,’ she says, ‘you are eating haggis and clapshot, with a whiskey sauce.’

Fitz’s eyebrows shoot up, and he looks from her, to the plate, and then back again. ‘Seriously?’

‘You were the one who said I needed a bit of _heart_ to my cooking,’ Jemma says airily, trying to hide the smirk creeping onto her lips.

She notices that he has paled a little, prodding at the pile of haggis with his fork. ‘I very much hope, Simmons,’ he says, ‘that you know haggis is supposed to be made mostly with the sheep’s _stomach_ , and not it’s heart.’

Jemma finds herself rolling her eyes, sinking into the seat opposite him at the table. ‘Seeing as I spent most of yesterday with my arms elbow deep in sheep guts,’ she retorts, reaching onto the trolley for the bottle of whiskey she had brought out with her, ‘I think it’s safe to say that I know that, yes.’

Fitz watches her pour him out a shot curiously. ‘Don’t you need to get back into the kitchen?’ he asks.

‘That eager to get rid of me, are you?’

He flushes. ‘That wasn’t what I meant…’

Jemma shakes her head, tightening the cap on the whiskey. ‘I don’t need to be back in the kitchen, no, but thank you for your concern. I had someone brought in to cover for me, just for tonight, so that I can sit here and watch you eat.’

‘Because that’s not a creepy thing to do,’ Fitz remarks, taking a sip of whiskey before digging his fork into the clapshot and bringing it up to his mouth.

‘Not at all.’ Jemma rests her elbows on the table. ‘I just wanted to have a little forewarning for your article this time around.’

‘Urgh.’ Fitz pulls a face, before loading up his fork again. ‘That bloody article…’

Jemma frowns. ‘What, don’t you like writing it?’

He shakes his head, munching on his mouthful even as he picks around his plate for his next. ‘No, not really. I’ve only been doing it for a few months and it’s not really what I ever wanted to do at all.’

He hesitates, and Jemma sits back, wondering whether or not to press the issue. Fitz’s face has fallen heavy, his eyebrows narrowing as he stares at his fork, as if he is trying to decided what he should say.

‘I, uh…I was actually at culinary school,’ he admits. ‘But I dropped out half way through. I spent a few years travelling, but then Coulson offered me the job at SHIELD and…well, I needed the money so it was a bit of a no brainer, really. And here I am.’

She wants to ask him why he dropped out, desperately so, but there is something in Fitz’s face, something regretful, even bitter, that stops her. Instead, she swallows her question and asks another.

‘What was your discipline? At culinary school?’

Fitz glances up and meets her eye, and Jemma thinks that maybe there is a little bit of gratitude in the way he is looking at her.

‘I was studying patisserie, if you must know.’

Her eyes widen, her heart skipping a beat inside her chest, and she is about to open her mouth again when Fitz clears his throat.

‘But I have to say, the job has become a lot easier since I started writing about coming here. It means I always have something to say, if nothing else, and I’ve gotten more emails about the column in the past three weeks than I have in three bloody months.’

‘Ah ha!’ Jemma feels her entire body perk up, grinning at him triumphantly across the table. ‘So, really, you ought to be _thanking_ us!’

Fitz seems to regret his words immediately, rolling his eyes skyward and sighing, but there is the ghost of a smile on his lips that makes Jemma feel even more victorious.

‘Yes,’ he says reluctantly. ‘Yes, I suppose I should be.’

He meets her eyes and Jemma feels her heart jump again, but for a very different reason this time. Under the low lighting in the restaurant, Fitz’s eyes look darker, and far more intense, but there is a warmth in how he is looking at her that she realises hadn’t been there before.

But, before she can get too used to it, Fitz looks away, directing his attention back to his plate.

‘Are you going to tell me, Simmons,’ he says, in mock horror, ‘that I am only going to get a main course tonight? Especially after just telling you that pastry was my specialty…’

Almost instantly, the spell of the previous moment is broken, and Jemma rolls her eyes, getting indignantly to her feet.

‘Of course you’re getting a second course,’ she scoffs. ‘Who do you think I am?’

‘Not a normal chef,’ is Fitz’s response. ‘That’s for sure.’

Placing her hands on her hips, Jemma sighs at him as she turns away, taking his plate with her, leaving him to make a few notes in his notebook, to fetch the small pot of cranachan she has made him from the kitchen. She is just debating adding fresh raspberries to the top of the honey when she notices something that makes her smirk in satisfaction.

Fitz’s plate, with its knife and fork pressed neatly together at the side, is completely empty.

 

* * *

 

 

_An Evening At Melinda’s (Third Time’s The Charm?)_

_It has long been said that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and this is advice that Melinda’s head chef, Miss Jemma Simmons, clearly decided to rely on during my last visit to the restaurant this week._

_Obviously taking inspiration from my Scottish heritage, she produced for me a range of Highland treats, including haggis with clapshot (that’s potatoes and swede, for the less cultured among you) and cranachan. All of this would have been very well indeed, had I been the kind of Scotsman who enjoyed eating the foods of my homeland every day._

_Unfortunately for Miss Simmons’ sake, I am not._

_The clapshot was overly sweet for my tastes, caused by an uneven ratio of potato to swede, and the cranachan too wet. The only part of the evening that did appeal to my tastes was the lashings of whiskey served with every portion of the meal – the whiskey in the sauce, the whiskey in the cream, the straight shot of whiskey in my glass. It was a wonder that I was able to see straight to make my way home again._

_It was evident from her menu of the evening that Miss Simmons was seeking to interject some heart into her cooking by using my own. It was, even I have to admit, a valiant effort, if rather cringe worthy, that fell short of both our expectations._

_No one’s haggis will ever be as good as the kind my mother makes._

 

* * *

 

 

May doesn’t even bother to look up as Jemma as she enters her office on Monday morning, clutching a copy of the latest issue of SHIELD and with her face set determinedly.

Instead, she continues to fill in the paperwork in front of her calmly, until her chef is standing right in front of her desk with her mouth open ready to speak. It is only then that she gives her answer.

‘No.’

Jemma closes her mouth with a frown. ‘But I haven’t even _said_ anything yet!’

‘I know you haven’t. But seeing as I know you, and I know _exactly_ what you’re going to say, I thought I could save us both a bit of time and give you my answer before you could say it. And my answer is ‘no’.’

Fighting back the childish urge to stamp her foot on the floor, Jemma sighs. ‘But, May…’

‘No ‘buts’,’ May says firmly, finally putting down her pen to look up at her. ‘I mean it, Simmons. I am not going to ring SHIELD again to ask for Mr Fitz to come back.’

Jemma feels her cheeks flush; was she really that transparent?

Apparently, she was.

‘But I really think…’

‘ _No_ , Jemma,’ May repeats, almost wearily. ‘I’m not doing it. Phil Coulson and I have agreed: if Fitz is going to come and eat here again, it’s not going to be because we organised it to be so.’

There is something peculiar about how she has worded this, and it leaves Jemma with her brow puckered, trying to puzzle it out. After a moment though, she shakes her head and tries again.

‘Our visitor numbers have gone through the roof since he first came, May, you know that!’

‘I do know that.’ May has turned her attention back to her books, beginning to type out figures onto a spreadsheet. ‘And what I also know is that, despite what you just said, I will not be making a call to SHIELD today to ask Leopold Fitz to come back here.’

Once again, there is something strange about her wording that confuses Jemma, so much so that she is still thinking about it even as she leaves May’s office and slumps against the closed door.

_If Fitz is going to come and eat here again, it’s not going to be because_ we _organised it to be so_ …

I _will not be making a call to SHIELD today to ask Leopold Fitz to come back here_ …

The realisation hits her about ten minutes later, as she is sitting in the kitchen trying to piece together the specials menu for the week. Instead, however, she finds herself fitting the pieces of May’s cryptic clues into place and, once she understands, she finds herself scrambling for her bag, and for the scrap of napkin that Fitz had written his number on for her.

‘Just in case,’ he had said quickly as he handed it to her, before she had a chance to be surprised. ‘Just in case you need to reach me.’

This wasn’t necessarily a _need_ , Jemma thinks to herself, as she keys in the numbers on the napkin into her phone. It was more of a _want_ than anything else, but a want she hoped they would both share.

Fitz’s phone rings straight through to voice mail, and she takes a deep breath.

‘Hi, Fitz? It’s Jemma here, Jemma Simmons? I understand that you’re probably very busy, but all I ask is that you ring me back when you can. I have a proposition for you…’

 

* * *

 

 

The next Friday, Jemma volunteers to stay behind after closing to lock up, which horrifies Daisy.

‘But you _hate_ locking up,’ she protests. ‘We _all_ hate locking up.’

‘I know we do,’ Jemma says sweetly, stacking chairs up onto tables. ‘Which is why I thought it might be nice for one of us to offer to do it instead of drawing straws for a change.’

Clearly still suspicious, Daisy narrows her eyes at her, but the idea of being able to escape into the evening earlier than normal is too tempting for her to stay and question her further, so in the end, she only shrugs and grabs her jacket to leave. Bobbi gives her a quick peck on the cheek in gratitude before she and Elena follow Daisy out.

May is the last to leave, and as she collects up her bag and her car keys she meets Jemma’s eye over the bar and gives her what Jemma thinks might have been a knowing smile.

But then all she says is, ‘don’t forget to be here by ten tomorrow,’ before she sweeps out of the door without a backwards glance, and Jemma decides that maybe it had just been a trick of the light.

Once alone, she sets out one table in the middle of the room, laying a place setting for one, and double checks on the food she has cooking in the kitchen.

Inside, her stomach is in knots, and she twists her hands together in sympathetic anxiety, as she taps her foot on the wood floor and waits.

It is just past midnight when the knock at the door finally comes, and Jemma all but flies across the room to open it.

‘There you are,’ she cries, stepping back out of the reach of the blast of cold air that had entered the room the minute she opened the door. ‘I was beginning to wonder whether you’d show up at all.’

Fitz steps through the door, his scarf drawn right up over his nose to muffle the cold. His cheeks are pink, flushing even deeper when she steps forward to help him take off his coat.

‘Yes, well,’ he grumbles, unwinding his scarf. ‘I _was_ actually considering not coming, given how bloody freezing it is out there, _and_ how you asked me to be here at such an ungodly hour. And then I arrived and saw that the place was completely shut up, so I was half of a mind to turn away and drive home again but…’

‘But,’ Jemma finishes for him. ‘You knocked on the door anyway.’

‘Yeah. I guess I did.’

She leads him across the room to his table, ushering him into his seat. Fitz sits obediently, gazing around at the empty restaurant.

‘Would you mind telling me what I’m doing here when the place is closed?’ he asks.

‘I’m getting to that, I promise.’

Jemma’s stomach is still tight as she turns his wine glass over, pouring him out a glass of elderflower pressé, but now there is excitement mixing with her nerves that makes her hand shake. Fitz raises one eyebrow at her, and lifts his glass up to examine it.

‘What, no whiskey this week?’

‘Absolutely not.’ Jemma puts the bottle back into the ice bucket by the side of the table. ‘I want you _completely_ sober for this.’

‘That’s a little worrying, Simmons,’ Fitz says, leaning forward on the table, his arms crossed. ‘What exactly do I need to be sober for?’

‘I’ll tell you in just a moment. Did you eat before you came?’

He hesitates, chewing on his bottom lip, and Jemma tries not to stare at him.

‘That depends. Have you cooked something for me?’

‘I have.’

‘In which case, no. I didn’t eat before I came.’

Jemma turns away with a slight shake of her head towards the kitchen, but she can’t quite stop herself from smiling.

Back in the kitchen, she drains the pasta she had simmering and serves a portion into a warming bowl, before spooning in a tomato, almond and garlic sauce and tossing the pasta in it. She chops a handful of basil leaves on top and carries it out to Fitz, setting it down in front of him.

He digs in, so appreciatively that Jemma has to wonder whether he really didn’t eat before he came, or whether his appetite was just that of an average size army. Either way, she doesn’t really have the time to consider it for long. Her leg is jiggling so hard under the table it feels like she has been set on vibrate.

‘Fitz?’

‘Mmf?’ His mouth is full, but he looks up at her enquiringly even so.

Jemma sighs, sinking into the seat opposite him. ‘Would you like to find out why I asked you to come here tonight or not?’

‘Oh!’ Fitz swallows quickly, putting down his fork, apparently intent on giving her his full attention. ‘Yes. Yes, please, I would.’

‘Alright then.’ Jemma clears her throat, tossing her hair back over her shoulder, a mimic of a move she’d seen Bobbi do a thousand times. ‘As I’m sure you know, these past few weeks have been…surprisingly beneficial, for both our respective parties.’

With a light snort, Fitz nods, picking up his fork again. ‘Yeah, I guess you could say that. Our sales have improved so much that Coulson’s even mentioned expanding the magazine. He keeps talking about hiring a new columnist come the new year.’

‘Right!’ Delighted that the conversation is heading directly in her rehearsed direction, Jemma sits up a little straighter. ‘And the profits at the restaurant have been higher than they have been since we first opened. And seeing as the common factor in both these occurrences is your reviews of my food…’

‘…it’s safe to assume that that’s what’s causing them,’ Fitz finishes for her, a slight trickle of tomato juice on his chin.

Jemma grimaces, handing him a napkin. He takes it, completely missing her intention, and tucks it into his collar instead.

‘We both have something to gain here, Fitz,’ she says. ‘You want to write a good article…’

‘…and you want me to give you a good review.’ Even in the dimly lit restaurant, she can see his eyes gleaming.

Huffing, Jemma rolls her eyes. ‘What _I_ want is for the restaurant to continue to thrive and have good publicity.’

‘Which I can get for you by writing good reviews.’

‘Yes,’ she concedes, feeling her cheeks grow hotter. ‘Yes, you can.’

‘Alright.’ Fitz spears a piece of pasta and pops it in his mouth. ‘So, what is it that you are proposing we do?’

Sitting forward, Jemma takes a deep breath.

‘What I am proposing is that we…you and I…we start an article together.’

Fitz frowns. ‘Together?’

‘Yes.’ Folding her hands on the table in front of her, Jemma tries not to look like her heart is about to jump out of her mouth. ‘Together. Every week, you come back here after closing and I will cook for you and you will write about it. Make a feature out of it in your column, write a new column, or whatever you think is best. And you keep coming back until you deem my food worthy enough of a good review.’

She exhales, sitting back in her chair and watching him apprehensively.

‘Well? What do you think?’

Fitz’s brow is furrowed, and he has put his fork down again, which lets her know that he is seriously considering what she has just said.

It is only now that she realises, with a jolt, that he could say no. She might have hideously misread the situation and he hated coming here, hated _her_ , and would throw the offer back into her face with a laugh and leave never to come back.

It is only now that she realises how desperately she doesn’t want him to.

After a few moments, Fitz looks up at her and, much to Jemma’s infinite relief, he grins.

‘I think,’ he says, ‘that it sounds like an excellent idea.’ He holds out his hand. ‘Do you want to shake on it?’

Jemma takes his outstretched hand graciously. ‘To the beginning of what I hope will be a remarkable partnership,’ she says.

Fitz nods, shaking her hand lightly between them. ‘To the beginning,’ he repeats.

Their hands stay clasped for just a moment too long, long enough for Jemma to be surprised at how easily her fingers were able to slot between his like they had been made to be there.

 

* * *

 

 

_SHIELD Magazine is proud to announce the introduction of a brand new weekly food column, written by our very own LEOPOLD FITZ and sponsored by MELINDA’S RESTURANT:_

_An Evening With Jemma_

 

 


	4. turkey with all the trimmings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She pauses only for a heartbeat before asking: ‘so what did you think of the food?’  
> Fitz had been half way out the door already, but at the sound of her voice he turns back. Even with only one foot outside, Jemma notices that the snow is already starting to fall on the top of his head, and it almost distracts her from the grin he is giving her.  
> ‘You’ll find out, Simmons,’ he says, stepping out into the snow. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the only dish in this chapter you won't find on the bbc website is the eggs en cocotte, but that's fairly self explanatory to make!
> 
> reading all your comments is so encouraging and it makes me so happy that you're enjoying the world i've created. it means so much.

 

 

The knock at the door comes so much earlier than usual that Jemma is still in the kitchen, stirring her cranberries in a pan of fresh orange juice, and doesn’t hear it. It is only when she hears her name being yelled, muffled through the door, that she looks up in surprise.

On the other side of the restaurant door, she can see Fitz pressed up against the glass, peering in, his coat pulled tight around him. Moving her saucepan off the heat, she hurries out of the kitchen to unlock the door.

‘You’re too early,’ she complains as he steps inside, shivering slightly. ‘I’ve still got a good half hour of cooking left before it’s ready.’

‘I know, I know.’ Fitz sighs, shrugging off his coat and hanging it on the hat stand. ‘But I finished at work early and I was going to walk home first before coming here, but with all the snow…’

Jemma starts, noticing for the first time the small, white flakes in his hair and on his eyelashes, that even as she watches are melting into drips of water in the warmth of the restaurant.

‘When did it start snowing?’ she asks, reaching out to brush the water droplets out of his hair.

Fitz lets her, bending forwards so she doesn’t have to stretch. ‘Hours ago, Simmons!’ He gestures to the windows, and she follows his gaze; at least three inches of crisp white snow have settled on the window ledge, framing the street lamp lined street outside like a Christmas card. ‘You can’t tell me that you didn’t notice!’

‘I can, actually,’ Jemma replies, ‘seeing as when I came in this morning it was perfectly clear, a little frosty maybe, but that was all, and I’ve spent all day since in the kitchen. So I haven’t had the _time_ to notice, _Leopold_.’

Wincing at her teasing use of his hated first name, Fitz concedes, and at her insisting, kicks off his snow crusted boots to prevent him treading wet slush across the restaurant floor.

‘It smells like cranberries,’ he comments, shuffling across the room in his wool socks.

‘I should hope it does, seeing as I’m making a cranberry sauce in the kitchen.’

‘Cranberry sauce…’ Fitz groans, the pieces obviously clicking together in his mind. ‘Simmons, are you making me a Christmas dinner?’

‘A miniature Christmas dinner,’ Jemma corrects, ‘but yes, I am.’

The idea, or so she had thought, was genius; what has more heart than a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings? With all the effort needed to maintain a perfect equilibrium of pots and pans and ovens, cooking a Christmas dinner required an immaculate use of technique, timing and the determination to produce something magical.

Surely, Fitz could have no objection to something as heartfelt as _that_.

He sniffs, perching on the top of his usual table, so that his legs swing in the air. ‘Jemma, it’s _January_. A little bit late for a turkey roast, don’t you think?’

‘Certainly not.’ She steps forward and tips him off the table, readjusting the place setting he had disrupted. ‘January is the prime time for a Christmas dinner. It’s when the last batches of the seasonal ingredients are in the food market, and, since the demand has greatly reduced by January, stall sellers have fantastic reductions on their prices.’

She steps back, and when she sees Fitz’s mouth beginning to open, she thinks he is about to argue with her. Then, after a moment’s pause, he decides not to and shrugs instead.

‘Okay. Show me what you’ve got.’

Her cranberry sauce is just about ready by the time she gets back into the kitchen. Jemma sets out a thick slice of turkey breast in the middle of a plate surrounding it with neatly chopped carrots, broad beans, golden roast potatoes and a homemade Yorkshire pudding, her grandmother’s recipe.

She tells this to Fitz proudly as she sets the hot plate of food down in front of him, with a small jug of gravy and tiny pots of cranberry, stuffing and bread sauce on the side.

‘Oh, really?’ He inhales deeply, as the thick scents of meat, gravy and sharp berries hitting the back of both their throats. ‘Are you from Yorkshire, then?’

‘Sheffield, actually.’

This is as close to a personal conversation as they had come since he’d told her he had gone to culinary school. Jemma feels her heart start to quicken as she realises this, and she wonders whether Fitz is aware of it too.

Before, their encounters had been strictly professional, but now there is a growing camaraderie between them, a friendship. To Jemma, it feels right, somehow. Like the only natural thing to be happening as they spend so many evenings alone together.

‘It was my grandmother who first got me in the kitchen,’ she says hesitantly. She watches for his reaction, but Fitz’s eyes are firmly fixed on the plate in front of him, daubing potato into gravy. ‘She was the person who taught me how to cook and to…’

She stops abruptly, thinking about the heavy notebook full of her grandmother’s recipes underneath her bed, the recipes she hasn’t been able to use for years. Remembering how Fitz had told her he used to study patisserie, she is tempted to keep talking, to tell him all about them. Maybe it would help their tentative steps towards friendship.

A carrot slips off Fitz’s plate and onto the table cloth. He tuts, picking it up in his fingers and popping it in his mouth. Jemma feels her nose wrinkle up in distaste.

‘Urgh, _Fitz_!’

‘What? It was still a perfectly good carrot!’

‘Mm, that has now left a perfectly _horrid_ stain on my table cloth!’

Fitz frowns, before licking his fingers and rubbing at the brown gravy mark on the white cloth. ‘Any better?’ he asks.

‘No, I think you’ve made it worse.’

He turns back to his meal, spooning a heap of cranberry onto his turkey. Jemma slumps back in her chair, realising that the moment to share with him had passed and unable not to feel a little disappointed that it had.

‘So, who made you interested in food?’ she asks instead.

Fitz gives a short laugh. ‘I’ve always been interested in food,’ he admits, ‘but, ah, my mother is the best cook I know. I mean, she fed me every night for eighteen years, so there aren’t really many people who can compete with that in my book.’

‘No,’ Jemma says softly. ‘I don’t suppose there are.’

When he has finished, Fitz places his knife and fork together and looks up at her, his expression part hopefully and part sheepish.

‘I don’t suppose,’ he says, ‘that you had any more of those potatoes…did you?’

Jemma has to purse her lips together tightly to keep her face from breaking out into a grin. ‘I think there might still be some in the kitchen.’

She leaves the kitchen door wide open when she goes in to check and, as she pulls the baking tray of potatoes out of the oven, she sees Fitz hovering in the doorway, his plate and pot of cranberry sauce in his hands. He has never followed her into the kitchen before, and Jemma finds that it makes her smile.

‘What did Coulson say about our column?’ she asks, pushing a handful of potatoes off the tray and onto Fitz’s plate.

Immediately, he spears one and dunks it straight into the sauce. ‘Exactly the same thing he said last week: “Nice job, Fitz. Keep up the good work”.’ He frowns, twirling his potato on the fork. ‘There was something weird about the way he said it though.’

‘Oh?’ Jemma drags a stool up to the work surface so she can sit beside him. ‘Weird, how?’

‘I don’t know. Like he knew something I didn’t.’

Jemma frowns back at him, and is about to ask what he means by that, when Fitz glances up and meets her eye.

‘He, uh, also asked me to pass on a message to you. Said to say that this was an excellent idea. A brilliant idea, that was his exact wording.’

Even coming from someone she had never met in person, the praise makes her perk up, a smile spreading across her face. ‘Really? He said that?’

Fitz rolls his eyes. ‘Jemma, come on. This was a fantastic idea, and you know it.’

‘Oh, I do. I just wanted to hear you say it, that’s all.’

Fitz’s eyes widen, his shock made all the more comical by the spot of cranberry still on his chin. But then it is his turn to smile, a vibrant grin splitting across his face, and when he laughs Jemma feels the sound vibrate through her.

‘In which case,’ he declares, ‘I will say it for you as many times as you want me to.’

‘Really?’

‘Well, as many times as I can before it becomes humiliating.’

Jemma reaches across the work surface to thump him.

Later on, once he has polished off the last of the roast potatoes, wiping out the cranberry dish with them, she walks him back to the front door. Fitz pulls his snow boots back on, pulling his scarf tight around his neck. Jemma leans against the door frame, watching him.

Once Fitz deems himself suitably wrapped up, he turns to her, his face framed in the amber light of the street lamps outside.

‘Thank you for tonight, Simmons,’ he says, the words coming out slightly awkwardly, like words his mother had told him to say after going to tea at a friend’s house.

She bobs her head, in acknowledgement of his gratitude. ‘You are very welcome, Fitz.’ She pauses only for a heartbeat before asking: ‘so what did you think of the food?’

Fitz had been half way out the door already, but at the sound of her voice he turns back. Even with only one foot outside, Jemma notices that the snow is already starting to fall on the top of his head, and it almost distracts her from the grin he is giving her.

‘You’ll find out, Simmons,’ he says, stepping out into the snow. ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

 

* * *

 

 

_An Evening With Jemma (Issue No. 6)_

_I stand by my previous statement, Simmons. January is_ much _too late to be having a turkey roast…_

 

* * *

 

 

‘I just don’t get it,’ Daisy says, letting the copy of SHIELD fall back onto the breakfast table with a satisfying slap.

Jemma frowns, stepping back from her watchful spot by the oven to face her friend.

‘What is there not to get, Daisy?’

The two of them are crowded in the small galley kitchen of Jemma’s pokey Victorian terrace, for their traditional Sunday morning breakfast.

The breakfast is a practice they had begun three years ago, when they had first started working at May’s together. Sometimes Bobbi and Elena join them too, but ever since the beginning it had always been the two of them. Daisy brings their usual coffee and tea orders from the café around the corner while Jemma takes charge of the cooking of the breakfast.

Generally, she makes pancakes or waffles, or stuffed breakfast pastries, anything that catered to Daisy’s insatiable sweet tooth. But this morning they have both overslept, due to a wedding reception at the restaurant that ran late into the night, and so Jemma is making them eggs _en cocotte_ with toast for a late brunch instead.

Daisy is supposed to be standing guard at the toaster, making sure their ciabatta slices don’t burn, but she has drifted over to the kitchen table and the copy of SHIELD Jemma had picked up last night. After his opening line, Fitz had gone on to give a fairly scathing report on the meal.

‘I don’t get how you can stand to have _this_ in your house! The Jemma I know can’t stand any kind of criticism, let alone criticism that isn’t _true_.’

‘Maybe it is true,’ Jemma says with a shrug. ‘Maybe January _is_ too late for turkey.’

Daisy only stares at her, her mouth dropping open in shock. ‘Okay, now you’re _definitely_ not the Jemma I know.’

Jemma can only roll her eyes fondly at her, before slipping on her oven gloves to take the eggs out of the oven. She had sprinkled cheese onto both, but topped Daisy’s with a little leftover salami. Putting her friend’s ramekin onto a plate, she slides it down the table towards her. Daisy catches it, tossing her a piece of toast in return.

They both sit down to their meals, each absorbed for a few minutes in the rich, buttery scent of the cheese and the warmth of the egg on their plates. It is a companionable silence, but Jemma can practically hear the cogs whirring in Daisy’s head as she eats and she knows that she isn’t about to let the subject drop so easily.

She is right, however in saying that Jemma’s reaction to Fitz’s criticism has changed. Jemma herself has noticed this – noticed that she no longer feels the sickness in the pit of her stomach when she reads what he has written, noticed that she doesn’t find herself agonising over his words late at night any more. She is still driven, of course, towards gaining a perfect review from him, but she is no longer quite so affronted by what he says.

She wonders whether this might have something to do with the fact that she often forgets other people are reading the article too. Sometimes, when she is curled up in bed with her copy hugged to her chest, it feels like a private correspondence, written in a language only she and Fitz can understand.

Sometimes, when she is drifting on the very edges of sleep, it feels like he is writing it just for her.

‘I’ve gotten to know him now, I suppose,’ she says after a few minutes, jumping in before Daisy can bring it up again. ‘And I like him. That’s why it doesn’t bother me as much anymore. It’s almost like you or Bobbi telling me you don’t like something I’ve made.’

‘Which,’ Daisy points out, whilst spreading her egg over her toast lavishly. ‘I have never done before in my life.’

‘I know.’

‘And will never, ever do.’

‘I know.’

‘Because your food is awesome.’

Jemma grins, taking a sip from her tea. ‘I _know_.’

‘So why are you letting Fitz tell you it’s not?’

‘I’m not letting him,’ Jemma corrects her. She takes up a teaspoon to scrape the remains of egg from her ramekin. ‘Every time he writes me a negative review, I make him come back to May’s so I can prove him wrong. And I will continue to do that until he finally gives in and tells me what you just did. That my food is _awesome_.’

Chewing thoughtfully on her toast, Daisy watches her.

‘You like Fitz now, then,’ she says.

Jemma nods, carrying her plate over to the sink to hide her pink cheeks. She remembers the night that it had snowed, the way she had been able to tease him and how they had sat together in the restaurant kitchen until the small hours. A lasting image of Fitz, lit up gold by the streetlamps with snowflakes in his hair, flashes across her mind. ‘Yes, I do. We’re friends, I think.’

Daisy crinkles up her nose. ‘Does that mean I have to like him now too?’

‘Well…I suppose you don’t _have_ to. Not if you don’t want to.’

Jemma sits back down again opposite her, watching her friend tilt her head to one side, considering.

‘Nah,’ Daisy says eventually. ‘I think I want to like him too.’ She reaches out to swipe the last piece of toast off the toast rack. ‘But tell him he’s still hanging up his own jacket.’

 

* * *

 

 

When she tells Fitz what Daisy had said, the next time he comes to the restaurant, she expects him to laugh out loud, maybe even make a few sarcastic comments. Instead, he appears to consider what she has told him, before nodding solemnly.

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘That sounds fair. You can tell her that I like her now as well.’

He turns back to his dish, linguine with salmon and cream, and Jemma is left to marvel at his complacent reaction. Maybe he and Daisy were more alike than either one of them would care to think.

She and Fitz are sitting in the restaurant kitchen again, both of them crowded around the work surface next to the hob, surrounded by the warm smells of cooking and the clutter of pans she hasn’t put away yet. After taking off his coat (and hanging it up himself), Fitz hadn’t even bothered to sit down at the table she had set for him; he had followed her through to the kitchen without a word and stayed there ever since. She hasn’t mentioned it, mostly because she is worried that if she says anything he will go back to his table and she doesn’t want that to happen.

There is something she quite likes about looking up from cooking and seeing him sat next to her, quietly writing in his notebook.

‘You could always tell her yourself,’ Jemma suggests. With one finger, she lifts a blog of cream sauce out of the saucepan and licks it. _Perfect_.

Fitz snorts. ‘Oh, yeah? I can’t see her being best pleased about you giving out her number to random men. Unless that’s the kind of thing you two do for each other…’

‘I didn’t mean like _that_!’ Jemma feels her chest tighten with something undefinable at the idea of Fitz with Daisy, and she flushes. ‘There are other ways for you to get in touch with her. You could find her on Facebook, or I could give you her twitter account…’

‘I don’t have twitter,’ Fitz says, just as she remembers that he doesn’t.

‘Yes, that’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. Why ever not?’

He shrugs, picking up the grater to add more parmesan to his pasta; Jemma opens her mouth to berate him for mixing cheese with salmon, then thinks better of it. ‘I don’t know. It just never felt like the kind of thing that would be valuable for me.’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘Fitz, you’re a _journalist_. A disperser of media to the masses. How can you _not_ see the value in being involved in social media?’

‘I never intended on becoming a journalist,’ he points out to her. ‘I never learnt about this stuff.’

‘Well, neither did I. But I still have an account.’

‘Do you?’ Fitz slurps his linguine off his spoon. ‘What do you do on it, then?’

‘This and that. I promote the restaurant, mainly, and I share recipes.’ Jemma pauses, watching him bend his head over his bowl. ‘I’ve been promoting SHIELD quite a bit recently too.’

‘Oh?’ He looks up at her, his eyes shining triumphantly. ‘Have you now?’

‘Don’t get too excited,’ she warns him. ‘It’s not as if I’m doing it for _you_. The restaurant has been featured so much and our column has been getting so much attention, I’d be mad not to.’

Fitz has put his fork down now, beginning to look genuinely interested. Jemma has started to notice the way his face lights up when he is animated, how the corners of his mouth lift, creating creases in his cheeks.

‘People talk about the column? What do they say?’

 ‘I’ve only seen good things so far. People outside of the food business have started to get interested now, they seem to be treating it like a serial, always checking back each week for the next one. They keep telling me about its extraordinary comedic value…’

Fitz pulls a face as she says this, his eyebrows furrowing and his mouth down-turning.

‘…and,’ she continues quickly, before he can dwell on his unintentional humour too much, ‘they’ve even given the column a nickname.’

‘Really? What’s that?’

‘They call it the ‘Fitz and Simmons column’, or, the Fitzsimmons column, to keep it short,’ Jemma says, feeling a small fluttering sensation in her chest at the sound of their names joined together. ‘Although heaven knows why, seeing as it’s you who writes it.’

‘No, no.’ Fitz shakes his head, looking up at her. ‘That makes sense. After all, the column was your idea and without you I wouldn’t have anything to write about anyway. You’re just as important to the writing as I am. Maybe even more.’

The unexpected frankness with which he tells her this stuns Jemma into silence, rendering her momentarily speechless. She is almost touched, really, at how easy the words seemed to be for him to say and how readily he was willing to share the credit.

Fitz seems to realise what he has said a little too late, and he turns back to his bowl with the tips of his ears turning pink.

When he has finished eating, he rises with her when she removes his plate. Wordlessly, he picks up the tea towel and starts to dry up while she loads the dishwasher and wipes down the surfaces. They don’t speak as they work, but Jemma discovers that they don’t really need to. The silence in the kitchen isn’t awkward, or uncomfortable. It feels nice.

It is only when they are finished and she is about to lead him back out to the restaurant that Fitz looks up and meets her eyes, clearing his throat nervously.

‘Say that I wanted to make a twitter account…how exactly would I go about doing it?’

Jemma grins broadly, and holds out her hand for his phone.

It takes only a few clicks to get it set up for him and Fitz peers over her shoulder, his chin not quite resting on her shirt, as he watches her pick out a suitable handle. Jemma can practically feel him pull a face when she tells him she’ll have to include his first name.

Choosing a profile picture takes them a little bit longer, as he has no pictures of himself already on his phone so they have to take one. Fitz insists on a plain background and, after some debate, they both agree that the best place to take it is in front of the sleek, black oven in the kitchen.

Holding his phone in her hands, Jemma tries to focus on taking a good picture. It is difficult, partly because Fitz’s first instinct appears to be to scowl at the camera and partly because she keeps getting distracted. You notice different things about people when you are looking at them down a camera lens.

Eventually she manages to get him to smile by pulling a face at him from behind the camera. It is only when she shows it to him, however, that they both notice her own reflection in the black mirror behind him, crossing her eyes and sticking out her tongue. Jemma takes another picture of him as he laughs at it, his eyes crinkling and his face partially obscured by his hand. Looking up from the photo to Fitz beside her, she feels her stomach swoop.

‘Here,’ she says, passing the phone back to him. ‘I think that’s done now.’

Fitz takes it from her, peering at his profile on the screen. ‘Huh. What do I do with it now?’

‘Start finding people you want to follow, I suppose. People who interest you.’

‘People who interest me,’ Fitz repeats softly. ‘Okay. I can do that.’

He stands up, brushing his knees off, before offering her a hand up. Jemma takes it gratefully, allowing him to lift her to her feet even though she knows it means their night together is over.

‘Any ideas?’ she asks, as they walk back to the front door together, shoulder to shoulder.

‘What about?’ Fitz slides his coat on, accidentally flicking his collar up as he does so.

Without thinking, Jemma reaches out to fix it before speaking again.

‘About who you’re going to follow first.’

‘Urm…’ He frowns. ‘No, not really.’

But there is a flush to his cheeks that, along with the way he won’t quite meet her eye as he leaves, tells Jemma that he might have an idea after all.

Once he is gone, she takes out her own phone. Typing in the user handle she had picked out only an hour ago, she finds his profile. Scrolling down to the bottom of his following list, one that continues to grow by the second as he finds more and more people to follow as he walks home, Jemma cannot help but smile.

The first person Fitz had thought to follow, the first person he had wanted to find, had been her.

 

* * *

 

 

 **@leo_fitz** : “@ _jemmasimmons your food vs 405 new followers. guess what my favourite part of last night was?_ ”

 **@jemmasimmons** : “ _@leo_fitz oh, shut up fitz_.”

 

 


	5. courgetti and butterbeans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘I’m sorry,’ he says after a moment. ‘That was quite presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?’  
> ‘Mm. Quite.’  
> ‘How can I ever make it up to you?’  
> ‘Oh, I don’t know. You could start by buying me a beer.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK, it makes me so happy reading all the comments!! i'm so glad you're all enjoying my little story. i think the only recipe in this chapter that isn't on the bbc website is the strawberry daiquiris, but those are readily available in any good cocktail bars :)
> 
> i hope you enjoy this chapter!

 

 

‘This is a bad idea,’ Bobbi says grimly, as Jemma brings the tray of strawberry daiquiris over from the bar.

The four of them are crammed into the corner table in their favourite bar, just down the street from Melinda’s. It is a regular haunt for them after a long shift, so much so that the bartender had been already starting to prepare their usual cocktails even before they’d properly sat down.

Jemma rolls her eyes as she passes their drinks out and doesn’t tell her that when Fitz had first suggested to her that she meet the other SHIELD journalists _she_ had thought it was a bad idea too.

‘They hate me,’ she had complained.

‘They don’t hate you,’ Fitz had retorted with his mouth full (lamb ragù with gnocchi, a dish Jemma had been particularly proud of).

‘They think I’m a terrible cook. You’ve told them that, multiple times.’

‘Hey, I’ve told them other things about you too!’

‘I don’t know if there is anything you could have told them,’ Jemma had said miserably, ‘to make them think any better of me after the pumpkin review.’

Fitz had bent lower over his meal and not replied.

It had been his turn to protest, however, when she had asked whether her friends could come too. He had visibly paled, before shaking his head.

‘They can’t come, Jemma. They’d eat my team _alive_.’

She had patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’re only saying that because _you’re_ scared of them.’

‘I am,’ Fitz has said earnestly. ‘I’m absolutely terrified.’

But he had agreed in the end, and so it was decided that on Friday night the two teams would finally meet one another for the first time.

Sliding onto the bench next to Elena, Jemma reaches out for her daiquiri. She takes a sip, sighing slightly at the deliciously cool fruit taste on her tongue, followed immediately after by the hit of rum.

‘This is an excellent idea,’ she insists, placing her glass back down on the table and turning to Bobbi. ‘Fitz and I are spending so much time with each other nowadays, it felt mad that we’d never all met up properly before.’

‘Jemma, sweetie, I think the idea of us actually meeting up is the maddest thing here,’ Bobbi remarks, swirling the liquid in her glass disdainfully.

‘But why?’

‘Because their magazine trash talks our restaurant!’ Elena has already downed her daiquiri, and is signalling the bar tender for a second round. ‘They trash talk our service, and our food, and our favourite chef…’

‘I’m your only chef,’ Jemma points out to her.

‘ _Si, y ¿tu punto?_ What’s your point?’

‘You two need to calm down,’ Daisy says calmly, sucking up her drink through a straw. ‘They do their jobs the same way we do ours. It just so happened that part of their job happened to be trash talking us one time. It’s not like they’re going to be doing it tonight.’

Out of the three of her friends, Daisy had been most enthusiastic about the idea of meeting Fitz’s team. Jemma thinks this must be partly due to her growing friendship with him anyway, a friendship that as far as she can tell consists mostly of sending animal pictures on back and forth on twitter and insulting one another. She isn’t about to complain about it though, because Daisy being on her side over this makes her life a whole lot easier.

As Daisy, Elena and Bobbi continue to bicker cheerfully, Jemma sips at her drink and keeps one eye on the door. Fitz had assured her he and his friends would be there by eight, but his timekeeping is notoriously atrocious and she isn’t expecting them to arrive any time before eight thirty. She is surprised then when the door to the bar opens at eight oh one exactly and Fitz steps through it, followed by four other men.

He scans the crowded bar anxiously and, when his eyes fall on her, Jemma gives him a little wave. His face lights up, and he turns to his friends to point them in the direction of the table.

‘They’re here,’ Jemma murmurs, reaching out to touch Elena’s hand on the table, causing her to stop mid-sentence.

Struggling inelegantly to her feet, Jemma steps out from behind the table, feeling a bizarre need to act as the hostess of the meeting. Fitz reaches her first, his scarf twisted up in his hands and his face looking as nervous as she feels.

‘Hi,’ Jemma whispers to him, trying to smile reassuringly. Taking his hand, she squeezes it, briefly pressing her shoulder to him in some semblance of a hug. ‘You made it then.’

‘We did.’ Fitz smiles back at her before letting go of her hand. He gestures behind him, and Jemma counts four faces. ‘I managed to get them all to come in the end, are you proud?’

‘Oh, immensely.’ Aware that behind her all her friends are watching the two of them like hawks, she takes a deep breath. ‘Are you going to introduce us?’

Fitz had never planned on bringing his whole office to the meeting; instead, he has brought the four members of SHIELD he worked most closely with, the four he considered his best friends. There is Lance Hunter who writes the sports column, Joey Gutierrez the features writer, Lincoln Campbell who edits the news items, and Alphonse Mackenzie, who Fitz introduces as Mack.

‘Our agony uncle,’ he says, patting the bigger man on the back.

‘I prefer to think of myself as an advisory panel,’ Mack says to Elena as he sits down beside her. Jemma sees Elena widen her eyes and snort, but she makes room for him anyway.

Somehow, their two groups fill a lot more room than expected, and both Fitz and Jemma find themselves still standing when everyone else has sat down. Touching her arm gently, Fitz motions to a window seat filled with cushions next to the table. Jemma nods gratefully and leads the way towards it.

Tucked a little way away from the rest of their friends, it is quieter by the window and the light from the strings of fairy lights hung from the curtain rail allows Jemma to see Fitz’s face clearly. There are dark circles around his eyes, presumably from staying up too late to write, but there is a colour in his cheeks as he grins at her.

‘So, Simmons.’ He rubs his palms together eagerly. ‘What have you brought for me tonight?’

Jemma finds her own smile wavering. ‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Wait. You didn’t bring me _anything_?’

‘Um. Were you expecting something in particular?’

Fitz’s face falls. ‘Well, food. Of course.’

‘Oh, _Fitz_! We’re on a night _out_! The key word there being ‘ _out_ ’, as in ‘ _not in_ ’! What were you thinking? That I’d bring you a meal all neatly packed in a tupperware box to eat on your lap?’

The colour in Fitz’s cheeks suddenly has nothing to do with the crowded room and chill from the world outside. ‘Um…no…’

Jemma groans, shaking her head, and sinks backwards into the cushions. Fitz mimics her sheepishly.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says after a moment. ‘That was quite presumptuous of me, wasn’t it?’

‘Mm. Quite.’

‘How can I ever make it up to you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. You could start by buying me a beer.’

He ends up buying her three beers over the course of the evening, his taste versatile and intriguing. Jemma’s favourite is the Adnams Kristal White, which tastes more of toffee than anything else. From their seat by the window, they laugh and talk, sitting side by side as they watch their two groups of friends slowly begin to integrate.

Hunter and Bobbi latch together immediately, both of them sharp and quick, and it isn’t long before their voices can be heard rising louder and laughing harder than any of the others. Daisy quickly takes both Lincoln and Joey in hand, and Elena seemed to have decided from the moment Mack walked in the door that he was the one she wanted to spend the evening talking to. Even from the window seat, Jemma can hear her correcting him on his Spanish, and see her face crease up with laughter when he tells a joke.

She turns back to Fitz to point it out, when she sees that his own face is staring at his beer bottle, downcast. Her stomach twists unpleasantly.

‘Fitz? What’s the matter?’

 He blinks at her, as if she is pulling him out of a trance, before shaking his head.

‘Nah. It’s nothing important.’

But he is still tapping his fingernail on the rim of his bottle, his mouth downturned. Jemma shifts closer to him on the window seat and nudges his shoulder with hers.

‘If it’s worrying you,’ she says gently, ‘then it clearly is important.’

Fitz purses his lips together tightly, leaning back against the cool window pane. He hesitates for a moment before turning his head towards her.

‘I won’t have anything to write for next week,’ he admits. ‘I’ve stopped writing the general column to focus on ours, and since we’re not at the restaurant this week…’

Jemma’s stomach sinks. In all her excitement to organise this evening, she had forgotten that, for Fitz, what they were doing wasn’t just a challenge, a quest to reach a personal goal. It was a job, a job that he was desperate to do well, and she had forgotten that.

Swallowing back her guilt, she tries to smile at him. ‘If you need to find another restaurant to review I can help you with that,’ she offers. ‘There are a couple of places I could ring, get you a table…’

‘But I like writing about you,’ Fitz says absently, and Jemma feels her heart skip a beat or two.

As if he is only just realising exactly what he said, Fitz’s face turns bright red and his mouth opens and closes like a goldfish. It is strangely adorable.

‘About your food, I mean,’ he blusters. ‘I like writing about you…and the food that you make. It’s what people expect from me now, you know? We’re like a duet.’

Jemma smiles at the insinuation, feeling warmth seep through her as she acknowledges his words.

‘Better together,’ she agrees.

Fitz nods, and when Jemma looks up at him she sees that his eyes are shining.

They fall silent again, their shoulders just touching as they watch the table in front of them. Daisy is practically sitting in Lincoln’s lap she is straining so far over him to talk to Joey, and Mack and Elena’s heads are bent so close together as they talk that they almost meld into one before Jemma’s blurry eyes. Hunter and Bobbi aren’t even sitting at the table anymore. They have drifted away to the bar, paying for a pack of peanuts and a handful of darts to throw at the board.

Jemma wonders if it would be weird for her to rest her head on Fitz’s shoulder.

‘I could write about tonight anyway,’ he says suddenly, before she can ask him. ‘Tonight has been pretty great.’

‘Yeah,’ Jemma says softly. ‘Yeah, it has.’

‘Although I didn’t eat before we came out, so I am still pretty hungry.’

‘Oh, Fitz.’ She reaches out to pat his knee apologetically. ‘I rather let you down tonight, didn’t I?’

He catches her hand before she can draw it away, holding it in his own. Jemma feels her breath catch in her throat.

‘No,’ Fitz says gently. ‘No, Jemma. You could never let me down.’

It is another heartbeat before he lets go of her fingers, letting them slide back down into her lap. Jemma bites her bottom lip as they shift back into sitting side by side, instead of face to face, feeling her heart slowly return to its regular rhythm.

‘We could go somewhere else to eat,’ she suggests. ‘I know a few places nearby.’

She can practically see Fitz’s ears prick up at the mention of food, and it makes her smile to herself.

‘Do you really think we could leave _them_ , though?’ he says, nodding towards their friends.

‘They’re getting on alright without us now, aren’t they?’

Fitz watches them for a moment, and then grins. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I suppose they are.’

They stand to leave together, vacating the window seat, and as Fitz hurries off to collect their coats from the cloakroom, Jemma finds herself hovering next to their friends at the corner table again. It is slightly quieter now, Lincoln and Daisy having gone to order a new round of drinks at the bar, and Elena appears to be challenging Joey to an arm wrestling contest.

Mack is sitting beside them on the edge of his seat, presumably ready to jump in should he need to intervene, but when he notices her standing next to him he offers her a ghost of a smile and moves across to let her sit down.

Jemma smiles back as she sits on the chair. Mack is a big person, tall and broad shouldered, but he doesn’t feel that way sitting beside her.

‘It’s nice to finally meet you,’ he says, his voice so low under the hum of the bar that she has to lean in closer to hear him. ‘I can put a face to the name at last.’

‘Likewise.’

‘Although Fitz talks about you so much at the office that I kind of felt I already knew you.’

Jemma blinks, feeling her face grow hot. ‘He talks to you about me?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Mack takes a swig from his beer, nods, and glances up at the ceiling with a sigh. ‘All the damn time…’

There is a clatter from across the bar, and both their heads turn to see Fitz scrabbling on the floor after the tray of empty bottles he had accidentally knocked from the waiter’s hand. Hearing his profuse apologies, Jemma has to cover her mouth with her hand to stop herself from laughing.

Next to her, Mack shakes his head. ‘He’s a weird little guy,’ he admits, ‘but I like him anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ Jemma says fondly, watching Fitz load up the tray again, even collecting more empty bottles from the table next to him, ‘so do I.’

‘And he likes you too, you know. Like, a lot.’

She grimaces. ‘He just hates my cooking.’

She hears Mack chuckle, and when she turns to look at him she sees that he is smiling, as if there is something he knows that she doesn’t. ‘Oh, give him time. I think you’re getting there.’

She is about to ask him what he means by that, but by this point Fitz is starting to make his way back towards them, his own jacket slung over his shoulder and her coat held out in his arms.

‘Any advice for me on that front?’ Jemma asks hopefully as she stands up again, remembering that Fitz had introduced Mack as the magazine’s ‘agony uncle’.

Mack tilts back his head and laughs.

‘Even if I did,’ he says, raising his beer bottle to his lips, ‘tonight, I’m off duty.’

 

* * *

 

 

As they step out of the bar and onto the street they find that it is raining, a thick, wet haze of rain that seems to drag the tentative spring back into the depths of winter.

Shivering, Jemma reaches into her bag and pulls out an umbrella. She leans away from Fitz, to avoid poking his eye out as she puts it up, and when she turns back she is surprised to find him offering his arm out to her, in a charmingly chivalrous gesture that makes her heart beat just a little bit faster.

She tucks her hand into his elbow as they begin to walk, falling naturally into step with one another. Jemma finds herself huddling even closer to Fitz’s side, to try and keep him covered with her umbrella. Up this close, she can smell the beer on his breath, and something underneath that, something softer, sweeter.

‘What do you fancy?’ Fitz says, his voice so near her ear it makes her jump. ‘There are burger places near here, pizzerias, Thai restaurants…’

Jemma shakes her head to each suggestion and pats him on the arm. ‘No to all of those. I know _exactly_ where I want us to go.’

She leads him off the main street and through a few back lanes. They have to jump over a few especially large puddles once or twice, occasionally grabbing at one another to stop them from slipping over.

Somewhere along the way, Fitz takes hold of her hand, and he doesn’t let go.

Eventually, Jemma pulls him to a stop outside a restaurant with ivy twined around the door frame and a small blackboard that might once have had specials on it stood on the pavement. Thanks to the rain, all the chalk on the blackboard has run off, creating streaks of rainbow coloured pastel that spill out onto the street. Fitz glances up at the sign above the door.

‘” _The Windowbox”,_ ’ he reads doubtfully. _‘”Organic food that tastes as good as it looks”._ I don’t know, Simmons. I’m not sure about this.’

‘Well,’ Jemma says, pulling down her umbrella and shaking off the raindrops. ‘It’s just as well I am, then, isn’t it?’

She leads him up the steps before he has the chance to protest further. The bell above the door rings as they walk in, causing one of the waiters to look up at them. Jemma smiles and waves at him; after a moment, his shoulders relax and he returns the greeting before turning back to his customer. Fitz watches the exchange with interest.

‘Did you know him?’ he asks with a frown as they choose a table by the window.

Jemma shrugs. ‘Sort of. Anne Weaver, who owns this place, was one of my teachers at culinary school. She left teaching the year I finished my course, and founded her own restaurant. I come here quite a lot, so I know a few of the people who work here. Isn’t it amazing?’

She gestures around them. The Windowbox Shop has a cosier, slightly more unique feel to Melinda’s: the tables and chairs are all mismatching, there are trailing ivies and succulent plants falling from high shelves and the whole place seems to emit a warm glow from the dozens of tea lights in jam jars dotted about the place. Jemma has been a regular at the Window Box ever since it opened and it is one of her favourite places in the world.

Fitz eyes the jam jar on their table suspiciously and shifts on his slightly wobbly chair. ‘An amazing fire hazard, maybe.’

Pursing her lips, Jemma tries again, inexplicably eager for him to appreciate somewhere that was so dear to her.

‘Anne is an incredible cook,’ she says, leaning back in her chair. ‘And she’s so versatile. She taught one thing for twenty years, and then decided to try something completely different here and it’s been so successful.’

Fitz raises an eyebrow. ‘She didn’t teach you organic cooking?’

‘No.’ Underneath her shirt, Jemma feels her heart leap with anticipation. ‘No, she didn’t.’

‘Well, what did she teach you, then?’

She has her mouth open, about to tell him, when the waiter arrives at their table with a notepad and a smile so genuine Jemma can’t even be irritated at him for interrupting the moment.

‘Have you had a chance to look at the menu?’

She glances across at Fitz, who is staring at his menu as if it were written in Arabic. ‘Fitz? Do you know what you want?’

He opens his mouth, glancing up at the waiter, and then closes it again. ‘Um. Can I have a few more minutes?’

‘We’ll have a bottle of raspberry pressé between us,’ Jemma decides for them. ‘And I’ll have…’ She pauses, running her finger down the menu. There are a few dishes that are familiar, old favourites that have stayed on the menu for years, and a handful of new, exciting ones, and it is one of these that her finger falls upon. ‘…I’ll have the courgetti with tomatoes and butterbean pesto, please.’

The waiter nods approvingly. ‘Excellent choice.’ He jots it down on his pad before turning back to Fitz. ‘And for you, sir?’

Jemma watches him flounder for just a little while longer before smiling sweetly. ‘Why don’t you have the same as me, Fitz?’

‘Yes!’ The relief on his face is almost comical as he passes the menu back to the waiter. ‘Yes. I will have, um…whatever it was that she was having.’

Jemma hides her smile behind her hand as the waiter takes their menus away, bringing back a bottle of sparkling raspberry pressé and two wine glasses. Fitz watches him, waiting until he has disappeared out of ear shot back into the kitchen before leaning over the table.

‘Tell me again,’ he says in a low whisper, ‘what is it we’re eating tonight.’

‘Courgetti with tomatoes and butterbean pesto.’

‘Oh. Right.’ He nods knowingly. ‘And, uh…just remind me what courgetti is.’

Jemma scoffs, popping the cork of the raspberry pressé. ‘And you call yourself a chef…’

‘A _pastry_ chef…’

‘…a student of the culinary arts…’

‘A dropout,’ Fitz reminds her, taking a hesitant sip of the drink she hands to him. ‘A drop out of the culinary arts.’

Up until then, Jemma had completely forgotten that he had dropped out of culinary school and the sudden remembrance of it makes her cheeks flame.

‘Courgetti,’ she says softly, ‘is spaghetti. It’s just made of courgette, instead of pasta.’

Fitz wrinkles his nose. ‘Isn’t that a vegetable?’

‘Yes, Fitz, a courgette is a vegetable.’

‘Why would you replace pasta with a _vegetable_ , of all things? What’s wrong with pasta?’

‘Nothing’s _wrong_ with pasta! It’s just healthier like this.’

Fitz still doesn’t look convinced, and he looks even more so when the waiter returns with their meals. The plates are steaming, piled high with courgetti, rich, red tomatoes and a pesto that smells absolutely delicious. Jemma inhales deeply as the dish is placed in front of her and smiles.

‘Ready?’

He looks anything but ready, but he picks up his fork obediently even so. Tentatively, he twirls a few strands of courgette around it and lifts it to his mouth. Jemma’s own fork hovers on her lips as she watches him chew. He has a curious expression on his face, as if he is considering what he is eating very carefully and trying to decide whether he likes it or not. Realising she is staring, Jemma quickly returns her attention to her own food.

They eat in silence for a while, their forks clattering against their plates in amicable harmony under the general hubbub of the restaurant. The act of eating together is nothing new; they have been eating together once a week for months now. But something feels different about this meal, and it’s not just that she hadn’t cooked it.

Jemma presses her napkin to her mouth, wiping away a spot of pesto, and hesitates.

‘Fitz?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Why _did_ you drop out of culinary school?’

He looks up at her, startled, like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Instantly, the look on his face makes her regret the question and she frantically starts to backtrack.

‘Oh God, I’m so sorry, that was such a stupid question, you don’t have to answer that…’

‘No, no.’ Fitz shakes his head, putting down his fork and rubbing at the back of his neck anxiously. ‘It’s, um, a very good question. One I’m surprised you haven’t asked before.’

Jemma groans, dropping her forehead into the palm of her hand. ‘I haven’t asked it before because I knew what a stupid question it was! You don’t have to tell me, Fitz, really…’

‘Jemma…’ She looks up to find him watching her, his eyes so unbelievably soft in the candle light that for a moment she finds herself quite breathless. ‘It’s okay. Honestly.’

He sits back in his chair, frowning a little as if collecting his thoughts. Jemma waits, her heart thumping against her rib cage.

‘I was in a car accident,’ Fitz says eventually. ‘Half way through my second year. It left me with brain damage. I couldn’t use my hands properly, and for a while I struggled…’ He gestures vaguely in front of him. ‘I struggled to find the right words at the right time.’

Stunned, Jemma exhales shakily. ‘Fitz, I’m so sorry…’

‘I know.’ He nods quickly. ‘I know you are. I realise now that there were probably things I could have done, help I could have asked for, but…I didn’t. Instead, I got angry and I got frustrated, and then the only thing I could think to do was drop out.’

Jemma shakes her head. ‘Your school should have offered you the help automatically! You shouldn’t have felt you had to ask for it!’

Fitz shrugs, but he has stopped eating. ‘Maybe. But, anyway, it was a long time ago now.’

There is a dullness in his eyes as he stares down at his plate, and suddenly Jemma cannot stand it any longer. Dropping her fork with a clatter, she reaches across the table and rests her hand on top of his.

‘Even so,’ she says softly, ‘you shouldn’t have had to give up on your dream.’

Fitz manages a smile. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that I gave up entirely,’ he says. ‘I just started looking for a new way to dream.’

His eyes are still cast down, but this time they seem to be drawn to their hands instead of his plate. Jemma follows his gaze as he slowly turns his hand so that they are pressed palm to palm.

The warmth of his skin against the coolness of hers is unexpectedly pleasant, as is the way their fingers slide together like two pieces of a puzzle. Absently, Jemma takes note of all the dips and grooves of Fitz’s palm like she is mapping him, and of the slight beat of his pulse against her wrist matches the beat of her own.

It feels like a very long time before Fitz clears his throat and slips his hand out from underneath hers.

They fall back into silence as they finish their meal and Jemma only looks back up again when the waiter comes to collect their plates. She asks him for the bill and he nods, walking backwards towards the kitchen with plates balanced up either arm.

‘So,’ she says, turning to Fitz with a smile. ‘How did you enjoy your courgetti?’

He pulls a face so expressive it tells her almost everything she needs to know. ‘Personally, I think it’s a disgrace,’ he says, like they are discussing something far more meaningful than pasta made of vegetable. ‘Do people really think they can take something as delicious as pasta and make it healthy and that no one will notice?’

Jemma chuckles, putting down a ten pound note to cover her half of the meal. Fitz does the same, adding a few pound coins for a tip. ‘You’re not a fan then?’

‘I wouldn’t call myself that, no.’

‘Well, that’s a shame.’ She tries to look casual as she stands, but can’t resist giving him a sly grin as he shrugs on his jacket. ‘Because I was considering asking the chef for some tips on how to make it before we leave. I thought maybe I could make more for you next week…’

Just as she had anticipated, Fitz looks up at her in alarm. ‘You wouldn’t.’

Jemma raises one shoulder nonchalantly. ‘I might.’

‘Simmons, I am begging you.’ They have reached the door by now, and he holds it open for her as they leave. ‘If you have ever cared about me at all, you won’t subject me to having to eat courgette spaghetti ever again.’

Looking up at him in the speckled light of rain splattered street lamps, Jemma wonders whether he has any idea of how deeply she has come to care about him.

‘You’ll just have to wait and see about that, won’t you?’

This time, when he offers her his arm she takes it without hesitation, and they step off the restaurant porch and into the night with their arms linked and their feet falling effortlessly into step.

 

* * *

 

 

_An Evening With Jemma (Issue No. 6)_

_…I meant what I said, Simmons. Feed me courgetti and I will never eat at your restaurant ever again._

 

 


	6. blueberry pancakes with golden syrup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Well,’ Fitz says lightly. ‘I don’t really care where you go. Just as long as you’re happy when you get there.’  
> Jemma smiles, feeling the slight beat of his pulse against the back of her hand. ‘And you’ll still come and see me, wherever I go?’  
> ‘Of course.’ Briefly, Fitz squeezes her hand underneath his. ‘You lead, and I’ll follow.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is rather a filler chapter, i'm afraid, but there's a surprise close to the end that i hope you'll all like!! reading all your comments over and over again is getting me through my days :)

 

 

‘Hello? Jemma?’

Licking the sauce off of her finger, Jemma tries not to pay attention to the way her heart jumps at the sound of his voice. She fails, quite miserably.

‘In the kitchen!’

Through the small kitchen window, she watches Fitz come in through the front door and take the keys off the hook to lock it behind him. It is months since she last locked the door after closing on the days he comes, since it made no sense for her to leave the kitchen to open the door for him when he could just as well do it for himself.

Fitz crosses the restaurant in five easy strides, grinning at her through the window all the while.

‘Hi,’ he says breathlessly, as he pushes the door open.

‘Hi,’ Jemma replies, turning away from him to grab her oven gloves before he can see how rosy her cheeks are. ‘How was your day?’

‘Much the same as usual. Hey, Mack told me he and Joey were going out with your friend Elena tonight. Apparently they’re going to a karaoke bar, of all places. Did you know that?’

Pulling the chicken out of the oven to check on it, Jemma rolls her eyes. ‘Of course, I knew that, Fitz. They’ve been going there every Friday since January. How did you not know that?’

‘Because apparently my friends don’t tell me anything,’ Fitz grumbles, but he doesn’t really sound too annoyed.

Behind her, Jemma can hear him dump his bag on the floor and start wrestling off his jacket. The spring weather has finally arrived, later than usual, but there is still a dampness to the air, one that clogs up the restaurant windows with condensation and makes her hair go frizzy if she is outside for too long.

Fitz grabs her spare apron from the work surface and quickly ties it around him, pushing up his sleeves, exposing the shape of his forearms. ‘What do you need me to do?’

Unconsciously, Jemma licks her lips.

‘You can start with the washing up,’ she says, gesturing to the sink. Currently, it is overflowing with greasy saucepans and spoons. ‘I just have to mash the potato, and the chicken needs another ten minutes in the over, so by the time you’re done I should think your supper will be ready.’

Fitz gives her a salute, a small motion that looks more like he is tipping his hat to her than anything else, and sets to work running the sink. He squirts too much washing up liquid into the water, like he always does, and before long the kitchen is filled with bubbles, reflecting the light and shining in rainbow colours.

‘So…’ Fitz is elbow deep in soapy water when she turns around, the rolls of his shirt at his elbows wet with it. ‘How about you? How was your day?’

‘Pretty good, actually!’ Jemma takes the masher in one hand, gripping the potato pan with the other. She stands on her tip toes, bracing herself against the counter to start mashing. ‘I planned out the special’s boards for next month with May this morning, which was quite exciting. Then we were fairly busy this evening, which I always enjoy, although there was one irritating woman who sent her dish back _three_ times because she said it was cold, when she knew perfectly well it wasn’t!’

Fitz wrinkles his nose. ‘Urgh.’

‘My feelings exactly.’

They fit around one another effortlessly, each absorbed in their own task but still very much aware of the other. Jemma side steps to allow Fitz to whisk a dirty lid off the hob, and he hands her down the nutmeg from the shelf before she is half way across the room to retrieve it.

They are a mechanism, the inhale and the exhale of a well-practiced machine, and Jemma tries not to think about it too hard. If she ever does, she is afraid that they might start to fail.

Twenty minutes later, she serves the meal, dividing it between two plates and setting it on the top of the work surface. Fitz drags two stools up for them and sits down heavily, rubbing his hands together.

‘What do we have today, Simmons?’

Jemma sits up a little straighter. ‘Spatchcock chicken,’ she says, pointing to his plate, ‘in a honey mustard and garlic marinade with sweet potato mash and roasted vegetables.’

Fitz sucks in a breath, his eyes glinting bright as she stares down at his plate. Feeling a deep rooted fondness for him in the pit of her stomach, Jemma grins and hands him a fork.

‘Oh, hey,’ he says to her with his mouth full, ‘did I tell you what Coulson did this week?’

Jemma frowns and shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so, no.’

‘Well, after my _roaring_ success on twitter…’

He pauses long enough for Jemma to roll her eyes in exasperation; in the few months since she’d helped him make his account, Fitz has gained at least a thousand followers and become so enthusiastic about his social media presence that she has taken to banning his phone from their dinners.

‘…he decided to make one for the magazine, and I helped him set it all up. Next he wants to start a proper website, with online exclusive articles and everything.’

‘Really?’ Jemma takes a bite out of her chicken and closes her eyes briefly. The meat is melt in your mouth perfect. ‘What an amazing idea!’

Fitz nods, patting a forkful of mash into the garlic gravy swimming on his plate. ‘Amazing, yes, but one hell of a lot of work. I think he’s going to have to start hiring if we want to keep up with the magazine as well…’

‘Well, he won’t be the only one,’ Jemma murmurs absently, thinking about the conversation she and May had had earlier in her office

Frowning, Fitz offers her a raised eyebrow. Pursing her lips together, she shifts a little closer to him on the workbench.

‘You can’t tell anyone.’

His eyes widen curiously. ‘Cross my heart.’

Wishing he hadn’t used those words, Jemma sighs.

‘May’s thinking about opening up a second restaurant,’ she says in a hushed voice, as if Daisy, Elena and Bobbi were hiding in the storage cupboard to hear. ‘She’s seen a place on the water front that’s up for lease and we’ve got the funds for it.’

Fitz nods slowly, his cheeks puffed out with food. ‘It sounds perfect.’

‘It is,’ Jemma says with a nod. ‘She’d stay and manage here, while Daisy manages at the water front, and Bobbi and Elena would go with her. It would be quite the promotion for all three of them.’

‘And what about you? Would you go with them, or would you stay here?’

He is watching her carefully, his eyebrows narrowed in concern. Jemma hesitates.

‘I…I don’t really know,’ she says reluctantly. ‘It was strange; May never said what she wanted me to do, even though I was _right there_ with her when she said it.’

Fitz frowns, chewing thoughtfully.

‘Would you _want_ to go?’ he asks her after a moment. ‘Or would you prefer to stay here?’

Jemma blinks, and sinks back into her chair.

‘I haven’t exactly thought about it yet,’ she admits, twirling her fork in her fingers. ‘May only mentioned it to me this afternoon, and I suppose there’s always the chance it might not even happen.’

That’s true.’ Fitz sucks at his finger, licking off a spot of gravy. ‘You should think about it anyway,’ he adds, ‘about what _you_ want. Because that’s just as important, Jemma.’

Every time he says her name, the softness of it makes her heart contract.

Jemma nods, unable to stop herself from smiling.

‘I will,’ she whispers.

‘Good.’ Fitz reaches across the bench to scoop the last piece of chicken off her plate and into his mouth. ‘And let me know what you decide. If you move to the water front, I’ll have to start leaving work five minutes early to get there on time.’

Jemma’s smile stretches even wider.

After Fitz has wiped the chicken dish clean with a piece of bread, they start to clear up. Just like before they sat down to eat, they easily fall into step beside one another as they clean. Fitz works on loading up the dishwasher while Jemma washes up, then she starts wiping down the surfaces while he dries the dishes.

Jemma isn’t exactly sure when they started to have a routine.

She isn’t sure when it was that she started to anticipate Fitz’s movements, or know to step out of his way when he is lifting a heavy tray into the dishwasher the same way he senses when she is behind him, and ducks to allow her access to the sink.

All she knows is that she never wants it to stop.

Once the kitchen is clean, Jemma leans back against the work bench with a sigh. Fitz joins her, standing so close that she can feel his hip just brushing her own.

‘So,’ he says, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, ‘are you, uh, heading home? Because your place is on my way home anyway, so I could give you a lift? Or I could walk you back, if you feel like the exercise…’

Jemma glances up at him, feeling her heart jump inside her chest. Fitz’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he swallows, his eyes wide and waiting. There is something deeper behind his expression as well, a meaning that she cannot quite reach.

Sucking in a breath, Jemma steps away from the bench.

‘I need to stay for a while,’ she says, turning away from him. ‘I have to write the specials up on the chalkboard for tomorrow.’

‘Oh.’ She thinks she might hear a hint of disappointment in Fitz’s voice. ‘Okay, then.’

‘But I’ll see you next week?’ she asks hopefully. ‘And for coffee on Tuesday, if you still want to?’

Fitz smiles, and Jemma feels her chest loosen once more.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I always want to.’

She walks him to the front door, holding his bag while he slips his jacket back on and then handing it to him when he is ready.

‘I’ll text you,’ he says, shouldering the bag and gesturing in front of him with one hand. ‘About coffee, and…’

Jemma nods, a little too eagerly. ‘Okay.’

‘Okay.’ Fitz nods, smiling down at her with one hand on the door handle.

For a few moments, they stand there together on the threshold, neither of them quite willing to move just yet. Then, Fitz clears his throat and pushes the door open.

‘I should…get going…’

Jemma waits until he has one foot out the door before biting at her lip.

‘Fitz, wait!’

He turns back quickly, one eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah?’

Flashing him an extra sweet smile, Jemma tilts her head to one side hopefully. ‘What did you think of the meal?’

A shadow passes briefly across Fitz’s face, as if he had forgotten why he was there at all, and then his eyes light up with mischief.

‘Well now, Simmons,’ he says, faux-seriously, ‘I know what you want me to say, naturally…’

Jemma narrows her eyes at him. ‘Fitz…’

‘But, I have my reputation to uphold, and you know that I-’

‘…I can’t believe after all this time-’

‘…pride myself on being honest at all times and I have to honestly say-‘

‘Leopold Fitz, don’t you _dare_!’

He breaks her off with a hand clamped lightly over her mouth, and Jemma feels herself suck in a sharp breath as his skin unexpectedly touches her lips.

As if realising what he has just done, Fitz pulls his hand back just as quickly as he had darted it out.

‘My mother makes it better,’ he says with a cheeky grin, before disappearing out into the night, leaving Jemma staring after him, utterly speechless.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Eeesh pl’ng w’h oouu.’

Taking her eyes off the saucepan, Jemma smiles and turns around, one hand on her hip.

‘I’m sorry, what was that?’

Sitting across from her at the kitchen table, Daisy has a plateful of pancakes in front of her. When her friend had arrived at her door that morning with a punnet of fresh blueberries, as well as coffees, as her contribution for their breakfast, the first thing that had sprung to Jemma’s mind had been blueberry pancakes. Daisy swallows the mouthful of pancake that had been preventing her from talking properly and tries again.

‘I said, _he’s playing with you_.’

The batter in the saucepan starts to crackle, and Jemma returns her attention to it with a frown.

‘Who’s playing with me?’ she asks, only half paying attention.

Behind her, she hears Daisy flick through the most recent copy of SHIELD lying on the kitchen table. ‘Fitz.’

The notion is so preposterous that Jemma actually snorts out loud.

‘Of course he’s not.’

Expertly, she flips the pancake and presses on the back of it with her spatula, hearing it sizzle for a few seconds before turning it over onto her plate. Sitting down at the table opposite Daisy, Jemma reaches out for the tin of syrup and twirls her spoon in the thick, golden liquid. She can feel the other girl eyeing her suspiciously and her cheeks start to feel a little bit hot.

‘Fitz would never do anything like that,’ she continues, letting the syrup fall sparingly onto her plate. ‘I don’t think he would be _capable_ of doing it, even if he wanted to.’

Daisy shakes her head, stuffing a forkful of pancake into her mouth at the same time. ‘Jemma, I love you,’ she says. ‘You know that I do. You are my best friend on this planet, and probably on every other planet too, and I know I said that I was all in for this, whatever it took, but…’

‘But?’ Jemma questions, putting down her knife.

Inside, her stomach is tightening unpleasantly.

Daisy sighs. ‘Remind me again what you and Fitz’s arrangement was?’

‘I cook for him every week, he reviews the meal and the column gets published in SHIELD. And we’ll keep on doing it until he writes me a good review.’

Picking up her cutlery again, Jemma defiantly stabs a mouthful of pancake as she watches Daisy close her eyes momentarily, before sighing again.

‘Jemma, he’s never going to give you a good review.’

‘Of course he is! I just have to find a meal that he bloody _likes_ first…’

Daisy groans. ‘Oh, Jemma, come _on_. He’s liked _everything_ you’ve ever cooked for him; he practically licks the plate clean every time he comes!’

Jemma feels her face colour, knowing that she could hardly deny what her friend was saying. She’d seen Fitz polish off his own meal _and_ hers within twenty minutes, and still his eyes lit up when she said there were seconds.

‘But,’ she protests feebly, ‘why wouldn’t he just write me a good review, then?’

‘SHIELD has been doing pretty great since you guys started up your column, hasn’t it?’ Daisy says, reaching out to pull the syrup back towards her.

Jemma frowns at the apparent change of subject. ‘Um, I think so, yes.’

‘Sale picked up, Fitz’s writing started getting way more attention, and, hey, didn’t he say last week that they got a record number of hits on the new website?’

‘ _Daisy_.’ Jemma looks up at her, feeling more and more unsettled. ‘What exactly are you trying to say?’

Daisy hesitates, as if she is struggling to think of the right words for what she has to say.

‘He’s not going to give you a good review,’ she says softly, after a few moments, ‘because once he does, he’s going to lose all that.’

The implication of these words slowly sinks in, and Jemma’s forehead screws up.

‘You…you think he’s _using_ me?’

The words sound horrid on her tongue, making her feel slightly sick, and she has to suck in a sharp breath after speaking them.

‘I don’t know what I think!’ Daisy rubs one hand over her eyes. ‘Maybe he doesn’t even realise what he’s doing. All I know is that your food is fucking fantastic and he benefits from not telling the world that…’

But Jemma is already shaking her head.

‘No,’ she says, her heart hammering against her chest. ‘No, Fitz would never do that. He could _never_ do that.’

 _Especially…especially not to me_.

She must have looked particularly upset, because Daisy scrapes back her chair and moves around the table to sit next to her, taking her hand in hers.

‘Jemma, listen,’ she says gently. ‘I like Fitz. You know that I do. I’ve been to movie nights with you guys, he makes me laugh and he makes you smile like no one else I know. He cleans the men’s bathrooms at the restaurant every Friday night so that I don’t have to do it, and when he’s drunk he does the best Braveheart impression that I have ever seen.’

This time, it is Jemma’s turn to groan and sink her head into her hands, remembering that night. Fitz hadn’t been the only one who had been drunk; the only thing she could remember about the evening was watching him across the bar, laughing at something Bobbi had said, and feeling the deep, explicit urge to have her body pressed firmly against his…

Daisy reaches out and takes her hands away from her face.

‘I like Fitz,’ she repeats. ‘But I _love_ you. And I would never forgive myself if you got hurt and there was something I could have said to stop it happening.’

Jemma smiles weakly, and squeezes her hands. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I would feel the exact same way.’

Daisy pulls her plate across the table, and they both resume eating. Jemma’s stomach is still tied in knots, but she goes through the motions anyway. The pancake tastes like sawdust in her mouth.

‘I hope I’m wrong,’ Daisy says after a few minutes of silence. ‘I really, really do.’

Jemma bites her lip, and thinks about the first time she had met Fitz, and how rude he had been. She remembers how worried he had been about the column, how desperate he always was for it to be good, to _stay_ good.

But then she thinks about his face whenever he looks at her, how easily he laughs at what she says and how the slightest of his gentle touches is enough to leave her body humming for days.

She takes a deep breath, and looks up to meet Daisy’s gaze.

‘You are,’ she says, with a firm smile. ‘I’m sure of it.’

Daisy smiles back, a little less convincingly. ‘Alright. Glad to hear it.’

They finish their breakfast side by side, talking about anything and everything other than the subject of their previous conversation. Gradually, the tightness around Jemma’s heart starts to ease.

When Daisy stands up to leave, she flicks over the page of the copy of SHIELD on the table and gives her a wry smile.

‘One thing’s for sure,’ she says, making her way to the door, ‘even when you do cook him the meal he gives you a record-breaking review for, there’s always going to be one person you’re never going to beat in his eyes.’

As the door slams shut behind her, Jemma glances down at the magazine and Fitz’s words written there, the words he said to her almost every week as he left.

 _My mother makes it better_.

She is still thinking about them hours later, lying on her bed with her ankles crossed and her hands resting on her stomach. Her conversation with Daisy is still replaying in her head, but she forces it back, choosing to focus instead on the end lines of the column.

Rolling onto her side, Jemma holds the magazine up close, scrutinizing the page until the words have faded into fuzzy blackness and she has the seeds of an idea growing in her mind.

The only Yellow Pages she owns is practically archaic, its pages ripped and its ink smeared, but it still only takes her minutes to run her finger down the lists of names and find the one she is looking for.

Jemma dials the number next to it into her phone carefully, and holds her breath as she hears it ring.

‘Hello, is this Mrs Fitz? Hi, this is Jemma Simmons…well, I’m sure I’ve heard just as much about you as you have about me...I was just wondering, would you be willing to do me a teensy, tiny favour…?’

 

* * *

 

 

Bracing herself against the kitchen counter, Jemma watches Fitz eat, acutely aware that she shouldn’t be but finding herself utterly unable to stop.

She had chosen a classic tonight, but with a twist: beef and stilton pie, with celeriac mash and roasted beetroot. Fitz had initially turned his nose up at the potato substitute, but after their night at the Windowbox he was marginally more open to trying the alternatives she presented to him, and was now digging into his meal with gusto.

Jemma finds her mind wander back to what Daisy had said a few weeks before, but quickly shakes the thoughts from her head.

‘So, it’s for definite now?’ Fitz asks, raising his head from his meal to look at her.

Ignoring the way her heart flutters, Jemma nods.

‘Everything is agreed. The lease is signed, rent paid. Melinda’s Restaurant officially extends to the water front in the autumn.’

It hadn’t been a shock, not really. Once Melinda May had set her mind to something, it was almost guaranteed that she got it. But still, hearing her confirm it to them all that morning during briefing had left Jemma slightly stunned, as she understood for the first time exactly what it meant.

Almost everything was about to change.

‘Has she told you what she wants you to do yet?’

Fitz has turned his attention back to his meal, but she can tell by the tone in his voice that he is still interested, concerned even, for her.

‘No.’ Jemma sighs and sinks onto the stool beside him. ‘And when I tried to ask her this afternoon, all she did was look at me and say, “we’ll see”. What is that supposed to _mean_?’

‘I suppose,’ Fitz says, pretending to ponder on it, ‘that you’ll see. At some point.’

She makes to shove him off his seat. ‘Very helpful. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He turns serious all of a sudden, the grin falling off his face. ‘Have you thought about it? Whether you’d prefer to stay or go?’

‘I’ll go wherever I’m needed,’ Jemma says decidedly.

Fitz rolls his eyes. ‘That’s hardly an answer to the question, Simmons.’

‘Maybe not. But it’s the truth.’

He falls silent, and Jemma wonders hopefully whether he has decided to drop the subject. But then he does something very unexpected, and gingerly reaches his hand out to cover hers on the bench. His skin is warm, and a little bit rough, and for a moment, Jemma forgets that she still needs to breathe.

‘Well,’ Fitz says lightly. ‘I don’t really care where you go. Just as long as you’re happy when you get there.’

Jemma smiles, feeling the slight beat of his pulse against the back of her hand. ‘And you’ll still come and see me, wherever I go?’

‘Of course.’ Briefly, Fitz squeezes her hand underneath his. ‘You lead, and I’ll follow.’

She barely has the time to register what he has said before his hand slips away, leaving hers cold on the work bench alone. Quickly, she slides it back into her lap.

Fitz stands up, accidentally kicking at the stool and stumbling in his haste.

‘I’d better get going,’ he says, almost apologetically. ‘I’ve got to be in the office at eight tomorrow, and I’ve still got a lot of writing to do tonight…’

Trying not to feel too disappointed, Jemma stands too, tucking a loose strand of hair back behind her ear.

‘Next week?’ she asks, tossing him his jacket.

Fitz catches it with one hand. ‘Next week,’ he promises, and Jemma knows that she believes him.

‘Are you going to tell me how the food was?’ she asks, following him to the kitchen door. ‘Oh no, wait, don’t tell me…’

She tilts her head and adopts an excessively bad Scottish accent. ‘Not as good as my mother makes it,’ she says, at the exact same moment Fitz repeats the sentiment.

He raises his eyes to her, and Jemma thinks that she sees a flash of guilt behind them.

‘Am I really that predictable?’ he asks.

Reaching forward, she pats him on the shoulder. ‘Hopelessly so.’

Once he has left, closing the front door securely behind him, Jemma turns back to the workbench. Bending down, she retrieves one of Mrs Fitz’s small recipe card from behind a saucepan, carefully annotated in Jemma’s own handwriting with discussed and approved adaptions.

Slipping the card back into her notebook, Jemma cannot help but smile when she thinks of what Fitz would say if he knew that the meal she had just cooked him was almost _exactly_ how his mother made it.

 

 


	7. tres leches cake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slowly, Fitz turns back to Jemma, and his eyes are so wide that his expression would almost be enough to make her burst out laughing, had the situation been any different.  
> As it is, all she can think of to do is raise the pan of sauce in his direction and ask: ‘hungry?’  
> For Fitz, she knows, the answer to this question is always going to be yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fitz's mum's name is andrea because i can never think about her without picturing andrea swift :) and here we have it, the final chapter before the epilogue tomorrow! thank you ever so much for all your kind comments, i appreciate them more than i can say. in return, i hope that this chapter answers the questions that you have and offers you the ending that (i hope?) you've all known was always coming!!

 

 

‘So then all you have to do is attach the courgette to the end of the machine…see where the blades are? Attach it there and start turning the handle…’

‘Oh!’ Peering around the side of her brand new spiralizer, Andrea Fitz beams in delight at the thin ribbons of courgette that begin to fall out of the teeth and into the bowl. ‘Isn’t that marvellous?’

Jemma leans against the kitchen table, her arms folded, and cannot help but grin.

‘And I can use other things in this too, did you say?’

Nodding, she pulls the box the spiralizer had come in across the table for Andrea to see. ‘You can also use carrots, sweet potatoes, apples…anything really. You could even make your own pasta, if you wanted to.’

Stepping back to admire the machine, Andrea shakes her head, but she is grinning from ear to ear. When she smiles, she looks exactly like Fitz.

‘It’s too kind of you, Jemma, really. Thank you.’ She beckons at her with one hand, and Jemma is smiling herself as she bends forward to kiss her on the cheek.

‘It’s the least I could do for my wonderful teacher.’

The lessons had begun twelve weeks ago, after she’d rung Andrea’s number in the phone book. Since then, Jemma has been spending three nights a week at the Fitzes household, carefully avoiding being there at the same time as Fitz of course, choosing her recipes and walking through them with his mum.

After the first few weeks, Jemma found that she was teaching just as much as she was learning – Andrea was interested in her methods, and curious about her ingredient choices. The hours they spent together, talking and cooking, was quickly becoming her favourite part of the week.

As she pulls back, Andrea pats her hair down with a fond smile.

‘Now, what did we decide we were doing this week?’

‘A true classic,’ Jemma reminds her, stepping around the table to help pull saucepans out of the cupboard. ‘Spaghetti bolognaise.’

Andrea nods approvingly as she opens the fridge, passing her a packet of mince from the local butchers.

‘Right you are.’ She raises her eyes to the kitchen window, craning her neck slightly to look out. When she notices Jemma staring at her, she smiles briefly. ‘Jemma, love, I’ve got some fresh basil out in the garden that would go beautifully with this. Will you be alright if I…’

A little bit bewildered, Jemma nods at her. ‘Of course, but…’

Andrea quickly squeezes her arm. ‘Back in a tick!’ she calls over her shoulder, as she hurries out of the kitchen as fast as her legs could carry her.

Jemma only has the time to frown curiously at her retreating back, before her head is turned at the sound of the front door opening in the hallway. As the voice calling through the door reaches her, she freezes, her hands hovering over the plate of mince.

‘Hey, Mum, I’m back. Sorry I’m late, but if you ever want me to come home early then you really need to start calling Coulson to ask first, because…’

Fitz’s words trail off, unfinished, as he steps into the kitchen and sees her. His eyes bug out and his mouth falls open, the plastic carrier in his hand slumping to the floor. Wincing, Jemma covers her mouth with her hand and tries to think of a suitable excuse that would explain her presence in her home. Unfortunately, her horror-stricken mind is drawing a complete blank.

Fitz manages to pull his mouth closed, then immediately opens it again, pointing at her with a shaking hand.

‘What…what are-what are…you…?’

Jemma is just about to come clean, and guiltily confess to him about her lessons with his mum, when Andrea bustles back into the room with her hands filled with green tufts of basil. When she sees Fitz standing in the doorway, her eyes visibly light up.

‘Why, there you are, Leo! I was beginning to think you’d forgotten to come home.’

Dropping the basil leaves onto the table, she hurries over to him. Obediently, Fitz bends over slightly so that she can press a kiss to his cheek, but his eyes never leave Jemma’s. Feeling her face flush, she quickly breaks the contact and looks down at the work surface.

‘Mum,’ Fitz says faintly, as Andrea grabs him by the wrist and tugs him across the kitchen. ‘What are you two-‘

‘We were just about to start on dinner,’ Andrea interrupts him, taking the shopping bag from his hand and replacing it with a carrot and a knife. ‘Now that you’re here, would you like to join us?’

Her voice is light, and loving, but there is a soft undertone to it that tells them both that she isn’t about to take no for an answer.

Jemma watches Fitz’s throat bob once, and then he begins to chop the carrot.

It had been a long time since she had truly worked under another chef; even during her recent weekly sessions with Andrea, the cooking had always felt more like collaboration than anything else. But tonight both she and Fitz are being held tightly under his mother’s thumb as she instructs them, which is a good thing as it turns out. Jemma is far too highly strung to get anything productive done on her own.

Fitz, on the other hand, moves seamlessly through the kitchen, picking up utensils and fishing through the fridge for ingredients. Once, when she turns to look for the garlic crusher, Jemma finds him already handing it to her, having anticipated her need and sought it out.

She offers him a feeble smile – part gratitude, part apology. The corners of Fitz’s mouth twitch in response, and when his fingers brush over hers, Jemma feels herself exhale with relief as she realises that his shock at seeing her in his home does not mean he is also angry with her. It is only now that it occurs to her how desperately she never wants him to be.

As they cook, Andrea weaves around them, tidying up and collecting things to set the table with. Jemma does not pay much attention to her, intent on producing the best bolognaise sauce she has ever made, until she turns around to plate up the pasta and pauses.

‘Andrea, you’ve only gotten two plates out.’

‘Oh?’ Fitz’s mum looks up at her with an innocent blink. ‘Have I?’

‘Yes,’ Fitz adds, peering over Jemma’s shoulder. ‘And you’ve only set the table for two, Mum.’

With an air of forced surprise, Andrea surveys the kitchen table, as if only just realising her mistake. ‘Why, so I have! What a thing to do, eh? Although,’ here, she drops her eyes to avoid both their gazes, ‘it does remind me. I promised old Mrs Pitch down the road that I would sit with her tonight, and she’ll be expecting me. You two don’t mind me leaving you alone, do you?’

But she is already out of the kitchen and collecting her coat from the hall, even as she says it.  Fitz turns to Jemma with a mildly horrified expression, and she has to bite her lip as she finally understands what Andrea Fitz is doing, what she has probably been planning since the first lesson she took with her all those weeks ago.

 _Smart woman_.

‘Mum…’ Fitz begins to say as Andrea swoops back into the kitchen, but she silence him with a firm kiss and a pat on the cheek.

‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ she says cheerily, picking her handbag up off a chair and making her way to the door. ‘Probably not until _very_ late tonight. I hope you two have a good evening!’

And then, just like that, the door is banging and she is gone.

Slowly, Fitz turns back to Jemma, and his eyes are so wide that his expression would almost be enough to make her burst out laughing, had the situation been any different.

As it is, all she can think of to do is raise the pan of sauce in his direction and ask: ‘hungry?’

For Fitz, she knows, the answer to this question is always going to be _yes_.

 

* * *

 

 

The chair she is sitting on is a little bit rickety, as one of the legs is being balanced on a blob of plasticine, and Jemma is doing her best to hold her balance as she eats. Across the table from her, Fitz is eating too, even more rapidly than normal, which she puts down to nerves. Nerves at the fact that she is in his house and he doesn’t know why, nerves at why his mother very pointedly left them alone…just _nerves_ , full stop.

Swallowing her mouthful, she pours him a glass of water from the jug in the middle of the table and hands it to him.

Fitz takes it gratefully, his face red.

‘Thanks.’

He gulps the water down in three short mouthfuls, and then reaches for the jug to refill it. Her heart pounding, Jemma twirls a few strands of spaghetti around her fork as she waits for the question she knows it is inevitable he will ask.

When Fitz puts his glass down and looks up at her, she knows it is about to come.

‘So…’ He shifts in his chair, vainly trying to appear casual. ‘Why, um…why are you in my house? Not that I want you to leave,’ he adds hastily. ‘And I certainly don’t have any objection to you being here, obviously, but I was just…I’m wondering… _why_ were you cooking in my kitchen with my mother?’

Ever since he’d walked through the door an hour ago, Jemma had been trying hard to formulate a believable excuse in her mind but now, looking into his eyes, she realises that it had all been for nothing. The only thing she can offer him is the truth.

‘I’ve been taking cooking lessons from her,’ she admits, watching Fitz’s eyebrows shoot upwards.

‘You’ve been _what_?’

Pushing her knife and fork together, she slides her half full plate across the table towards him. Fitz takes a hold of it and lifts up a forkful of spaghetti.

‘A few nights a week, I’ve been cooking with your mum. I bring her my recipes, she guides me and then on Friday nights, I cook them for you.’ Watching the way he is bolting down his food, Jemma forces back a grin. ‘So all those times you told me that what I’d made wasn’t as good as when your mother made it…’

Fitz’s fork hovers half way to his mouth and his eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘Ye-es…?’

‘Well…’ Raising one eyebrow, Jemma crosses her arms over her chest and shoots a pointed look down at his plate. ‘I’ve been cooking it all _exactly_ how your mum makes it.’

 Following her gaze, Fitz stares down at his food in dismay. Closing his eyes with a groan, he drops his fork and buries his head in his hands.

‘She’s going to be cooking me bloody courgetti for the rest of my life as payback, isn’t she?’ he moans, eyeing up the spiralizer machine at the end of the table.

Jemma laughs aloud. ‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she says teasingly. ‘She might occasionally let you have squash spaghetti, apple salad…and if you’re really good, then she might even make you some sweet potato chips…’

Fitz groans again, but as he raises his head, she can see that he is chuckling too. All of a sudden, any residual tension between the two of them evaporates and Jemma feels a lightness take root inside her chest as they laugh together.

‘But why, though?’ Fitz asks, once they’ve finished laughing. ‘I mean, what made you think to do _this_?’

Jemma shrugs, reaching over to snag a forkful of spaghetti from the plate. ‘It made sense,’ she says through her mouthful, ‘your two favourite things to say about my cooking are that it doesn’t have enough heart and it isn’t as good as your mum’s. And what has more heart than a mother’s cooking?’

‘So…’ Fitz gestures to the table, his forehead creased. ‘You accosted my mother, making her _adore_ you, by the way, and invaded my home, cooking in my kitchen without me knowing…all to try and get me to give your food a better review?’

‘Yes!’ Jemma nods, scooping the last of the spaghetti sauce up triumphantly. She looks back up at him and raises an eyebrow hopefully. ‘Did it work?’

For a fleeting moment, Fitz’s face freezes and she sees him inhale sharply. Then, he appears to recover and offers her an anxious smile.

‘Do you, uh, fancy dessert? Shall we make dessert?’

He gets to his feet so hastily that he almost trips over his chair legs, plates clattering as he tries to clear away.

Jemma finds herself still sitting, stock-still, with a distinct unease growing in her stomach as she realises how quickly he had evaded her question. Daisy’s words from all those weeks ago suddenly come flooding back to her, about how he might only be giving her bad reviews to continue the column, how he might just be _using_ her, and the unease grows.

But then Fitz turns to her, with a look of such earnest hope on his face that it makes Jemma’s heart feel like it is about to fall out of her chest.

Swallowing back her traitorous doubts, she smiles.

‘I’d love dessert.’

 

* * *

 

 

Fitz has to get on his hands and knees by the bookshelf to fish for the recipe book. When he pulls it out from the back of the bottom shelf, he blows on it, sending up a thick, grey dust cloud into the air around them, which is enough indication that it has been a very long time since its last use.

Coughing slightly, Jemma leans over to peer at the cover.

‘And when, pray, was the last time you and your mum used this?’

‘Oh, years.’ Fitz rests the book down on the kitchen table and starts to flick through it. ‘I put it away once I quit culinary school and I don’t think either Mum or I have looked at it since.’

Moving a little closer to him, Jemma can feel his arm just touching against hers. If she wanted to, she could tip her head sideways and it would be resting on his shoulder.

‘What are we going to make, then?’ she asks.

Abruptly, Fitz stops turning the pages and grins, pointing down to the recipe on the page in front of him. ‘That one.’

Over his shoulder, Jemma reads: _‘“Tres leches cake. A delicate, sweet sponge made with three different kinds of cream. Difficulty rating – 1/10.”_ ’ Glancing up at him, she raises her eyebrows. ‘Please tell me you’re joking.’

Fitz shrugs. ‘Well if you think you can’t handle it…’

Suddenly, Jemma remembers the one secret she is yet to tell him and, unlike the others, the prospect of him finding out this last one makes her smirk.

‘I think I can give it a shot. Lead the way, Chef Fitz.’

Fitz starts by clicking the oven on, and then he turns around to fish mixing bowls out of the cupboard. Pulling the fridge open, Jemma scans the shelves, picking out the relevant ingredients and bringing them over to the table.

Almost instantly, they fall back into their usual rhythms, made different now only because Fitz is the one leading. Or leading as much as Jemma is about to let him, anyway.

He begins by separating the egg whites from the yolks, while she measures out the sugar and other ingredients. When he glances over his shoulder, mouth open as if to give her an instruction, Jemma watches him waver when he notices her already mixing together the flour, baking powder, milk and vanilla extract.

She raises an eyebrow at him. ‘What?’

Fitz shakes his head. ‘Uh, nothing. I was just about to ask you to mix those together. But it looks like you beat me to it.’

With a smile, Jemma picks up the hand mixer and beckons for his bowl of egg whites. He hands it to her, before remarking: ‘you know, you’re pretty good at this.’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘No! I mean, I’m not surprised that you’re good at something; I think you’re good at _everything_.’ He glances up at her. ‘But you’re not even looking at the recipe, Jemma, not even for quantities. It’s almost like you’ve done this before.’

‘Well,’ Jemma says, tossing her hair back over her shoulder to keep it out of the egg whites, ‘I suppose that’s because I have done it before. A great many times.’

Fitz blinks at her, the subtlety of her meaning evidently flying right over his head. With a sigh, Jemma shakes her head, but cannot help the warm rush of affection she feels for him in this moment.

‘A great many times,’ she repeats. ‘At culinary school. Where I trained in patisserie.’

Almost instantly, the haze over his eyes clears and he gapes at her. ‘Wait, _seriously_? You were going to be a patisserie chef? Like me?’

‘Yeah,’ Jemma admits, watching the slight smile grow over Fitz’s features and feeling a smile of her own pull at her lips. ‘Just like you.’

He emits a short, soft laugh, shaking his head slightly, and she has to wonder whether the small thrill of delight she had felt upon learning of their shared passion is what he is feeling now.

‘But why didn’t you pursue it?’ Fitz asks, his forehead creasing up. He looks so genuinely upset for her that Jemma feels her heart clench. ‘I mean, I know you love being at May’s, but as far as I can tell patisserie is never on the menu.’

Pursing her lips together, Jemma taps the hand mixer off on the side of the bowl and begins to fold in the sugar.

‘I graduated at about the same time that May was opening up the restaurant,’ she says. ‘She had a waitress, a front of house, and a wine expert. The only thing she was missing was a general chef. So that was what I became.’

She passes him the bowl and Fitz takes it, carefully adding the egg yolks to the mixture without taking his eyes away from her.

‘So you gave up your dream to help out a friend.’

‘Oh…’ Jemma screws up her nose, considering the statement. ‘I wouldn’t say that I gave up on it, not exactly. I just…’ For a moment, she struggles to express herself, before remembering the very words he had said to her in the Windowbox, months before. She lifts one shoulder in a simple shrug offering him a dry smile. ‘I just found a new way to dream it.’

She expects Fitz to laugh at that, waits for him to tip his head back so she can watch the laughter lines wrinkle on his face, but he doesn’t. Instead, he falls silent, his face thoughtful. Jemma frowns.

‘Fitz? Are you alright?’

‘What?’ He looks up and then smiles, fleetingly, before sliding the second mixing bowl, with the flour and the milk in it, towards him. ‘Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.’

Before she can stop herself, Jemma finds her hand reaching out to cup his cheek, turning his face towards her. She feels Fitz suck in a breath as she does so, before realising that if she took two steps closer they would be pressed nose to nose.

‘What is it?’ she asks. ‘You can tell me.’

His eyes meet hers, and he brings his own hand up to cover hers, rubbing his thumb against the soft skin on the back of her hand.

‘I was wrong, that’s all,’ he says gently.

‘What about?’

‘About your cooking.’ He tilts his head so that it falls solidly into the palm of her hand. ‘It does have heart. And it always has. I just wasn’t looking in the right place.’

Not for the first time since she had met him almost a year ago, Leopold Fitz leaves Jemma Simmons speechless.

They finish preparing the sponge together and pour it into the greased tin. Fitz opens the over door and Jemma slides it in, favouring the top shelf. She always found that top shelves gave cakes the best golden glow.

In an unspoken agreement, they begin to clear away part of the kitchen debris. Somehow, despite both their best efforts, there is sugar spilled on the surfaces and whisked egg whites dripping from the cabinets and Jemma can’t imagine that Andrea would be very happy coming home to find her immaculate kitchen in such a state.

There is something changed between them, however hard she tries to ignore it. The air feel charged, almost electric, and whenever Fitz accidentally brushes against her as they move across the kitchen his fingers linger for just a little too long on her body for it to be an accident at all. It’s not a bad change, not at all. But it does make Jemma’s heart race faster as she realises that before this goes any further there is something she needs to know.

‘Fitz? Can I ask you something?’

He turns to her and nods, almost immediately. ‘Yeah, of course you can. You can ask me anything.’

Taking a deep breath, Jemma summons all her courage. ‘Daisy thinks that you’re playing with me.’

Fitz almost drops the bag of flour he had been carrying. ‘She _what_?’

‘She thinks that you’re playing with me, and that you’ll never give me a good review for my food because then you’ll have to give up the column. I just need to know…’ She sighs, brushing her hand over her hair. ‘Is she right?’

It takes one, heart-stopping moment for Fitz to recover himself, and then he shakes his head vehemently.

‘No,’ he says, the word sounding strangely fierce on his lips. ‘No, I could never do that.’

‘That’s what I said!’ Jemma bursts out, filled with an overwhelming relief at hearing him say it. ‘And I don’t think Daisy ever truly thought it either, she was just scared, but then I was too…’

‘Why?’ Fitz steps towards her. His blue eyes have darkened with concern. ‘What was there for you to be scared of?’

Biting down hard on her bottom lip, Jemma thinks for a moment, searching for the words to encapsulate her confusing feelings over the last few weeks.

‘I was scared,’ she says eventually, ‘that she might be right, even if she didn’t want to be. And that you…you might be doing all this, being friends with me, just because it gives you something good to write about.’

The mere idea that this might be true is enough to make tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and she has to blink twice to keep them from rolling down her cheeks. Seeing this, Fitz moves quickly across the kitchen towards her, taking her hand in between the two of his. The warmth of his skin alone is enough to make Jemma exhale.

‘Okay…’ He rubs at her hand, his forehead creased and his knee jiggling, as if he is trying to decide something important. ‘So, uh, I guess now is as good a time as any for me to tell you the truth.’

Jemma frowns. ‘What truth?’

Fitz’s tongue darts out to wet his lips anxiously, but then he looks up at her and she sees that his face is set with determination and kindness. This, at last, drains all of her remaining fear from her.

‘To start with,’ Fitz begins, pulling her hand close enough to rest it on his chest, ‘I reviewed you because I didn’t exactly have a lot of choice. You made sure of that.’

Remembering her insistence to May that the SHIELD reviewer came back, and then her demand for a third chance, Jemma wrinkles her nose. ‘I suppose I did, didn’t I?’

Fitz grins, and he half lifts her hand, as if to bring it to his lips, and then changes his mind. Jemma can’t help but feel a small twinge of disappointment. ‘And then I did it because it was really fun, and really easy to piss you off…’

When she opens her mouth to protest this, he quickly brings one finger, still covered in icing sugar, to her lips to stop her. If she moved her mouth, even the slightest, she would be tasting the sugar.

‘And then…’Fitz hesitates, before admitting, ‘then, yes. I liked writing the column because it was successful and it felt good writing with you. About you. But now…’

The word seems to catch in his throat, and Jemma finds herself almost rising up onto her tip toes, hope rising in her chest.

‘Now?’ she questions, her voice coming out in a barely audible breath.

Fitz twists his face down to look at her and, all of a sudden, Jemma realises how close to each other they have become. Her hand is still held against his chest, and, even though his finger has fallen away from her lips, he is still near enough to be resting his forehead against hers. All it would take would be one upward motion from her, or a downwards one from him and they would be-

‘Now,’ Fitz whispers, ‘I do it because a world where I don’t get to see you every week isn’t a world I want to live in.’

In the end, Jemma reflects later, she doesn’t even remember which one of them moves first. Perhaps they moved together. All she knows is that one moment they are apart and the next they are closing the gap between them to kiss.

The first kiss is soft, softer than anything Jemma has ever experienced. Their lips find each other’s, and she feels Fitz gasp into her; his breath is warm and yet it makes the hairs on her arms prickle. She moves even closer to him, opening her mouth slightly to deepen the kiss, and Fitz’s hand shifts to the small of her back to support her.

Underneath her fingertips, she feels his heart start to beat even faster.

When Fitz begins to pull away, Jemma doesn’t let him go very far. Her hand leaves his chest and she loops her arms around his neck before leaning in to kiss him again, already missing the feel of his lips against hers.

Fitz responds eagerly, tightening his hold on her hips and walking her backwards until her spine hits the kitchen counter. All the while, he is kissing her, his lips exploring every crevice of her mouth, her cheeks, her chin, the nape of her neck…

Jemma finds herself gasping as he hits a particularly sensitive spot near her collarbone, and her hands twist into his hair, locking them together. Fitz’s lips taste of sugar and milk and something even better, and with every kiss he gives her she discovers everything she has ever wanted.

She anticipates what Fitz is about to do when his hands shift upwards to her waist, and, when he lifts her up, she jumps a little to help and he settles her on top of the kitchen counter. It is still messy from where they hadn’t cleaned before but right now the butter smears and cream stains on her skirt are the furthest thing from Jemma’s mind. Fitz’s hand making its way up her leg as he continues to kiss her hungrily, however, is a far more pressing matter.

Wrapping her legs around his waist, she draws him closer, her fingers pressed to every inch of his skin that she can find like it would help her commit him to memory. This kiss, this moment, _this_ , is not something Jemma ever wants to forget.

‘Fitz,’ she breathes, their faces still so close that she says it more to his lips than to him.

He shifts underneath her, nudging her face up with his nose so that when she opens her eyes she is looking into his. When she does, Jemma could swear she sees the rest of her life reflecting back at her. ‘Yeah?’

Tenderly, she brings her hands to frame his face, her thumbs brushing over his cheekbones. ‘I think,’ she whispers, ‘that I’ve fallen in love with you.’

Fitz lets out a huff of breath that might be a laugh. ‘Well that’s a relief,’ he mumbles. ‘Because I have _definitely_ fallen in love with _you_.’

The laughter bubbles up inside Jemma’s chest until she can’t keep it in anymore. She watches Fitz’s eyes crease up as he grins at her, his eyes alight and his smile even brighter, until she reaches out to kiss him again, pouring into it the love she feels for him in every fibre of her being.

Somewhere along the way, either she or he must have pushed the bag of icing sugar off the worktop to allow it to balloon into the air, because soon all Jemma can taste is sweetness and Fitz.

 

* * *

 

 

‘Do you remember what you told me at the Windowbox?’

They are lying together in Fitz’s bed, his sheets tangled around their legs and their bodies humming in harmony. There is a warmth in Jemma’s chest, a warmth that grows every time he looks at her.

Fitz frowns, his fingers absently tracing a pattern on her bare shoulder.

‘Um, the very particular thing you want me to remember from that night? Can’t say that I do, no.’

She thumps him, lightly, on the arm and then presses a kiss to the spot.

‘When I said that you shouldn’t have had to give up on your dream, you told me that you hadn’t, that you’d found a new way to dream it.’ Dropping her head, Jemma rests it on his shoulder. ‘What was it?’

Fitz swallows; she is close enough to him to feel it, the way she feels every breathe he takes. ‘I started to dream about owning a patisserie shop,’ he says, his voice quiet and a little bit wistful. ‘With freshly made pastries and cupcakes each morning, tables and chairs out in the street so that people can enjoy the sunshine. I thought that, even if I couldn’t be the one making the pastry all of the time, I would still be there. I could still do exactly what I wanted to do.’

When he looks at her after a few moments of silence, it is an invitation, a hope for both of them.

‘Does…does that sound like the kind of dream you’d like to share?’

Jemma grins, rolling herself over so that her legs are tucked on either side of his chest and she is leaning over him. As she bends down to kiss him again, Fitz’s arms already reaching up for her, there is only one word in her mind. It is lucky, then, that it is the only word that she needs.

‘Yes.’

 

* * *

 

 

_An Evening With Jemma (Issue No. 6)_

_Reader, listen to me when I tell you this. Absolutely everything Jemma Simmons does is utterly magnificent._

 

_(And I do mean, EVERYTHING.)_

 

 


	8. epilogue: raspberry and cream cupcakes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he hurries into the main bakery, he takes the opportunity to glance around. At the counter, rows and rows of fresh pastries are lined up, next to whole fruit cakes and daintily iced cupcakes, waiting to be sold, and the tables have neat, gingham tablecloths and a plate of mini complimentary cupcakes in the middle. He feels his stomach swoop as he takes it in, and a secret smile creeps across his face.  
> It never ceases to amaze him, every time he walks in here, what an incredible thing he and Jemma have managed to achieve together.

 

 

_Five years later_

 

The knock at the door comes at eight o’clock, an hour before opening, and Fitz still has his hands covered in choux pastry. Groaning, he quickly rinses them and pulls his apron off, muttering under his breath.

On his way out of the kitchen, he passes the stairs, taking the opportunity to yell up them: ‘I’ve got it!’, so that the other two residents of the flat above the bakery, who are still otherwise engaged, won’t come running down the stairs to get the door.

As he hurries into the main bakery, he takes the opportunity to glance around. At the counter, rows and rows of fresh pastries are lined up, next to whole fruit cakes and daintily iced cupcakes, waiting to be sold, and the tables have neat, gingham tablecloths and a plate of mini complimentary cupcakes in the middle. He feels his stomach swoop as he takes it in, and a secret smile creeps across his face.

It never ceases to amaze him, every time he walks in here, what an incredible thing he and Jemma have managed to achieve together.

Outside the front door, a young woman is standing waiting, clutching a notebook to her chest while bouncing anxiously on the balls of her feet. Fitz taps on the glass at the ‘closed’ sign on the door, but she just smiles at him and gestures for him to open it.

Sighing, he does as she asked.

‘We’re closed,’ he says apologetically. ‘You can come back in an hour, if you like, you’ll be first in line…’

‘You’re Leopold Fitz, right?’ The girl blinks up at him and, when he nods uncertainly, she beams at him again and sticks out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Louise, Louise Piper. I’m the new food columnist for SHIELD.’

Fitz’s jaw drops as he takes her hand and shakes it, and then he pulls it shut again before it comes across as rude. Since he’d left SHIELD, Coulson had told him he’d hired a new columnist, but he had never gone back to the office at the right time to meet her.

‘Oh, _you’re_ …I’m so sorry I didn’t recognise you. It’s so great to be able to meet you at last.’

‘You too!’ Piper seems utterly unable to wipe her grin off her face as she stands on the doorstep. ‘Word at the office is that you’re a living legend.’

Fitz snorts, rubbing at the back of his neck. ‘Well, I don’t know I would quite say that…’

Finally remembering his manners, he opens the door properly and invites her in, motioning for her to take a seat at a table next to the window. He is just about to sit down opposite her, when he hears footsteps on the stairs.

‘Fitz? Who was at the door?’

Both he and Piper turn towards Jemma’s voice as she steps into the bakery. Fitz feels his heart quicken at the sight of her, dressed simply in jeans and a white blouse and carrying their two year old daughter on her hip. As she shifts her weight, her blouse rides up slightly, exposing the almost indistinguishable curve of her lower abdomen.

 ‘Hi!’ Piper’s face has lit up, and she almost falls to the floor in her haste to stand up again. ‘I’m Piper. I’m SHIELD’s new food columnist. And you must be Jemma.’

‘I am!’ Jemma walks towards Fitz, a curious smile on her face. In her arms, their daughter starts to squirm, and he bobs forwards to kiss her on the nose, eliciting a squeak of delight from her. ‘And it’s wonderful to meet the person following in my husband’s footsteps.’

He had been her husband for four years now, and Fitz still wasn’t tired of hearing how the word sounded on her lips.

‘Speaking of…’ Piper hops from one foot to the other. ‘I’m in the middle of writing – or trying to write, anyway – my first column, and I was told that this was the place I ought to start. So, I was wondering if you both would mind giving me a quick interview?’

Fitz glances down at Jemma, who raises one eyebrow at him before giving an almost indiscernible nod. He looks back up at Piper, and grins.

‘Sure, why not? What do you want to know?’

‘Well, for starters,’ Piper says as they all sit down at the table, ‘I’d love to know this little one’s name.’ She pulls a funny face at their daughter who, sitting on Jemma’s lap, giggles and hides her face in her mum’s shirt.

Jemma has to bite her lip to keep herself from giggling, and carefully detaches her. ‘Marie,’ she says, and the word is so full of love that Fitz feels his own chest swell up with it. ‘But, ah, she’s always been ‘mini May’ to us, and to the family.’

‘May? After Melinda May?’

‘Yeah,’ Fitz says softly, reaching across to rub his thumb across his daughter’s cheek. ‘It felt appropriate.’

Without even looking up, he knows that Jemma is smiling at him.

 Piper crouches down to wave across the table. ‘Hi, mini May,’ she says, and Marie pulls a face almost identical to the one Piper had pulled at her before. ‘And, ah…’ She gives Jemma a cautious smile, her eyes flickering downwards. ‘Is she excited to meet her new brother or sister?’

Jemma flushes, her hand moving to hover over her stomach.

‘Very,’ she says, a little shyly. Fitz watches as she squeezes Marie tighter, feeling a swell of love for his expanding family. She glances across the table to meet his eye and gives him a fleeting smile. ‘And we can hardly wait, either.’

Piper watches the exchange between the two of them before clearing her throat apologetically. ‘Next question then…’ She opens her notebook and scans a page quickly. ‘Tell me a little about how you guys set this place up.’

Jemma looks across at Fitz, opening her eyes a little bit as she invites him to take the lead on this one. Rubbing at his chin, he thinks about where to start.

‘We began making the plans five years ago,’ he begins. ‘But it took us almost three years to get here. Writing had never been what I wanted to do, however much I enjoyed it in the end, and finding out that Jemma wanted the exact same thing that I did…it was like my whole world had started, all over again.’

‘You’d known each other for quite a while before that, hadn’t you?’ Piper jots down a few notes, before adding, ‘when did you find out that you both wanted this?’

Next to him, Jemma blushes, her skin turning a pale pink underneath her freckles, as Fitz thinks: _just after we found out we both wanted each other_.

‘It was after we got together,’ he admits.

Underneath the table, Jemma slots her hand into his, and squeezes it.

‘You continued to work at Melinda’s Restaurant for a while?’ Piper asks her. ‘Is that right?’

Jemma nods. ‘For about fifteen months, yes. We needed to build up the funds for a lease, and I didn’t want to leave until May had found a new head chef. So, really, it worked out nicely for both of us.’

Piper waggles an eyebrow. ‘And, uh, can you tell me anything about him? This new head chef? Is he any good?’

Fitz watches Jemma tilt her head to one side, pretending to consider. ‘Well, he’s certainly not _me_ ,’ she says wryly, ‘but I’ll say this for Chef Reyes, he is far better than I ever was at flambé.’

In her lap, Marie lets out a huff.

‘Daddy,’ she demands, in an imperious little voice that sounds worryingly like Jemma’s, and Fitz leans over to scoop her up with one arm. She bursts into peals of giggles, clutching his thumbs in her tiny hands as he bounces her up and down on his knees. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he inhales the sweet, strawberry scent of her infant bubble bath, a smell he has come to love just as much as he loves butter and sugar and Jemma.

‘I’d ask you what you know about SHIELD’s success,’ Piper says to him. ‘But…’

Fitz grins, as Marie falls back against his chest, the wisps of her hair tickling his neck. ‘But,’ he finishes for her, ‘you already know all about that, I imagine, and Coulson’s multi media empire.’

Piper laughs aloud, shaking her head. ‘I don’t think I’d go _that_ far,’ she confesses, ‘but looking at where the magazine started and where it is now, it’s a pretty impressive story. And I know that he owes _a lot_ of the success to the two of you.’

He’d known that before, but hearing it from the mouth of another person makes Fitz’s chest puff up with pride. When Piper turns to bend into her bag, he quickly brings Jemma’s hand up from under the table and kisses it.

‘So, you guys got fell in love,’ Piper recaps, ‘opened a business together and had a baby, all in the space of five years?’

Jemma groans. ‘You make it all sound so easy! Like we planned it that way.’

‘Didn’t you?’

Fitz shakes his head, bringing his hands up to cover Marie’s ears. ‘May wasn’t exactly expected,’ he says, as she protests, struggling underneath him to free herself, ‘she was a surprise…’

‘…a wonderful surprise,’ Jemma adds hastily, to which he nods. ‘I found out I was pregnant on the day we signed the lease on the property and May was born the day we opened this place.’

‘Rather inconvenient of her really,’ Fitz remarks, earning him a stern look from his wife and a tiny fist to the stomach from his daughter. He doubles over, pretending to be deeply wounded from the blow, as he explains, ‘we had to leave Daisy and Mack in charge of the place while we went to the hospital.’

 ‘She didn’t have the best of timing,’ Jemma admits, ‘granted, but…’

‘In the end, the way it happened felt like it was what was meant to be,’ Fitz finishes, pressing a feathery kiss to Marie’s forehead. Jemma takes his free hand in both of hers, bringing it up to rest on top of her bump.

‘You’re both happy then?’ Piper asks. She looks from one of them to the other, and back again. ‘No regrets?’

Fitz looks across at Jemma, who is regarding him with the absolute, shining love he has come to know as his. He thinks back, to the very first time he had seen her stride across her restaurant to him, her beautiful face set and determined. Little had he known then how deeply he would come to love her face, and everything about her, and how important she would become to him.

On his lap, Marie starts to strain towards Jemma, and she holds out her arms as he helps her climb over his knees to her mum. The smile Jemma gives her as she scoops her up goes straight to Fitz’s heart, and makes him feel like he is glowing, inside and out.

‘No,’ he answers for the both of them. ‘We’re living our dreams, and so much more. We don’t regret a thing.’

Over Marie’s head, Jemma meets his eyes and all of a sudden her smile is all for him.

‘In that case…’ Piper’s voice brings them both back to the present. They turn back to look at her and see that she is grinning too. ‘I only have one more question.’

Fitz shrugs. ‘Sure.’

‘We’re open books,’ Jemma adds, brushing Marie’s curls back off her forehead.

Piper’s gaze drops and Fitz follows her eye line to the plate of cupcakes in the middle of the table. It had been a fresh batch from early this morning when he had been up with May; she had been fussy and he had taken her into the kitchen to bake with him while Jemma slept.

He had chosen raspberry and cream cupcakes, fresh and sweet and topped with mountains of pink icing. May had gotten it all over her face as she helped, so much so that Jemma had insisted on bathing her when she came downstairs and found them like that. But, sat on the floor of the kitchen with his daughter smearing cake mix down his shirt with delight written all across her face, Fitz didn’t think he had ever been happier.

Piper nibbles at her bottom lip as she stares at the cupcakes and hesitates.

‘Am I allowed to have one?’ she asks hopefully.

Fitz feels his mouth break into a grin and, glancing across at Jemma, he sees that her eyes are sparkling.

Looking back at Piper, they say, in perfect unison: ‘be our guest.’

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so that's the end (for now)! anyone who knows me could have seen that ending coming a MILE away but i hope it's not too sweet to stomach.
> 
> i have equal parts loved and hated writing this universe but the response i've received from all of you has been overwhelming and i am just...so unbelievably grateful for all of your comments and support. a special thank you to casey, notthatstupidcatagain and the entirety of the group chat that's name changes every time i check twitter. thank you for the love and the cheerleading and for reminding me to actually post the chapters!
> 
> i'm on tumblr @jeemmasimmons if anyone ever wants to chat/ask questions/rant at me there!!


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